A Spiritual Life

Alone versus lonely

2009-12-24T13:38:00.000-06:00

I was talking to a friend of mine who is concerned that after her divorce, she's been alone. The problem isn't really of her being alone, but that she is lonely. She was surprised that I like living by myself, and shocked when I said, "I'm never lonely." Part of this is that I've pulled myself out of the Collective Consciousness years ago, so I don't buy into the group think about being by myself. I walk a different path and I know what I need to do. I've done so much work on myself so that I'm in a different place spiritually, and as a result I am aware of my Guides and also loved ones who are on the other side. Being connected to who you are and to God gives you a different perspective in life because you never feel alone. This may sound corny, but for anyone who has reached this place, you know of what I speak.

As with many others, Christmas is a special time but for me, especially because I've chosen Christmas Eve as my time to commune up above, and to be of service in a different way. Usually the weeks preceding and subsequent to Christmas are my times for parties and socializing. On Christmas Day I give my time and love to a loved one, rather than socializing with friends. It isn't that I eschew socializing on Christmas Day. Years ago I did the Christmas day parties, get togethers, and all of that. With the people who meant the most to me mostly on the other side, my perspective in what is important has changed.

Now, I simply choose how I spend my time on a day that would otherwise leave someone who would feel "alone and lonely." Christmas is a day where we can honor His Presence, not only with gifts to friends and family, but to give the ultimate gift of love to those who need it most.

Developing your Spiritual Power and Muscle

2009-10-11T00:05:00.000-05:00

Buffy here.

There are basically two types of power that the Light has. One is healing power, the other is spiritual authority. Remember all that 'gunk' I talked about? When you devote your life to the Light, and you begin to clear away the gunk, more light is allowed to enter your being. When this happens, you begin to develop some level of Spiritual Authority. Dr. Phyllis Light, PhD, creator of the Personal Rejuvenizers, has encoded many clearing functions to clear, over time, many of the negative subconscious programs that hold people back and prevent them from evolving. Her clients, who have access to accelerated clearing, also begin to have increasing levels of Spiritual Authority.

However, with more power comes more responsibility, so her clients are also constantly reminded that they must use their energy responsibly. If at any time, her Higher Beings that work with her give her a message that someone is abusing this gift, they usually temporarily have their power taken away. This is done to protect others as well as themselves, because they may 'wish' for something out of anger that can manifest, and that will cause them much negative karma. On the high side of it all, those who are evolving and conscious are better able to manifest good things in their lives.

Choosing to reclaim being truly in the Light requires commitment. It requires looking at your personal issues and what you don't like about your life, and then digging into the belief that you have that allowed you to be in that situation. For example, if you find that you are constantly disrespected by everyone around you, then you probably have a deep subconscious belief that you are not worthy of respect. This may have been taken on innocently in a past life, but then more beliefs were piled on as a result. Do this for a few lifetimes and you've now perfected this. Clearing this belief out of you will help so that you no longer hold that space of this type of negativity, and will shift the energy you send out to people, by no longer giving out the message that you aren't worthy. People will respond in kind.

So it's also about thought energy, but the subconscious part of our thoughts, being 95% of the mind for most people, is a huge chunk of negativity. When you keep clearing out that negativity, you open the door for Light to come in. With that comes a measure of Spiritual Authority, and your ability to manifest that which is good will increase.

Dark humans that ruin our lives

2009-10-10T14:30:00.002-05:00

Buffy here.

Just like Ted Bundy appeared as a handsome young man to his victims who would open their doors and willingly invite him in, so are there dark archetypes. These types of people work for the dark to varying levels and degrees. In some cases, their mission is not of God and the Light, but their mission is to destroy the Light.

This is not done overtly, but energetically. It is done subtly. There are some who have channels of darkness leading and funding all that they do. On the surface, they can appear to be nice people. They can be friendly, even seemingly helpful. They can be non churchgoers, and I've know some who were avid churchgoers. Like beauty, which can often only be skin deep, those are dark archetypes are committed to various levels of destruction.

When you are with a person like this, in life, what happens is that on a very subtle yet deep level, they work to destroy your soul and bring you into the dark with them. It isn't overnight, but over time, the soul is damaged. Manipulative energies often are part of the power they receive, and one may feel like they owe the person, that they must take care of them.

Very often these types of people will plant programs into someone so that they will never leave them. I knew a man who was married to such a woman. Because he never sought help, but was strong willed enough early into the marriage to break free, legally he was free of her. Because he did not get the spiritual help he needed, he still believed all the manipulative programs that were put into him, and bought her housing in an exclusive area of the city, thanks to all the dark programs that were put into him that he had to keep taking care of her.

This was a woman who was financially well off and could afford lavish clothing and vacations without his help. She later met yet another man that she energetically manipulated, and soon he, too, was wanting to buy her a home when she already had bought a new one herself. From what I know, he is still energetically manipulated into believing that he, too, must take care of her for the rest of her life. She threw energies into everyone, even her female friends, so that they would always help her, because they were now programmed that they somehow, "owed her." And with every day that they spent with her, their souls were becoming more and more enshrouded by the dark.

Perhaps the most common archetype is what one of my friends kiddingly refers to as a vacuum cleaner. She said that one of her ex's was one. Many men and women know they type: a partner who, instead of enlivening how you experience life, they instead seem to suck the life force out of you.

Often people married to these types rely on alcohol. With enough alcohol, usually a person can medicate themselves so they don't really comprehend what is going on energetically or spiritually. Like any of these types, once one recognizes what is being done to them, the ones who have felt their higher calling and who know how to listen will extricate themselves from these types of relationships before their souls are completely destroyed.

Still others will be doomed to failure as a result of their association with someone like this. It is even more sad, and tragic, when such a person is one of their parents, as the child will suffer much without realizing why they cannot seem to get their life together the way others do. Often in this situation, they will turn to the dark for relief, because they either scoff at the Light or those who can really help them, because their souls have already been damaged. In this case, intervention is needed.

I know of one person who instead chose the dark, and so he too, now is funded by the dark and has become successful, with little effort on his part. The converse is not necessarily true but for those who have been 'nailed' in this way, it often becomes the easier way out. Another person I know of has become a true adult child, unable to fend for himself and at age 51, still lives with his parents and is completely dependent on their income. One might call him a lost soul. As an Empath and a Seer, what I can tell you is that this man has been done to very badly by those who "work for the dark." Remember, these can be people who are nice to you, but their spiritual foundation is in another place.

So these energies may be subtle, but they are dark and very damaging. When they damage a soul enough, no amount of free will can save them. Only God can, through those who are Gifted to be able to do this type of liberation, who have spiritual authority and spiritual healing power. It is then a person's karma as to whether they can find this help. It will be a test of whether they, themselves, truly want the Light because all too often staying with the Dark is seductive because it is easier, and too often, a known way of life.

A true life experience

2009-09-29T21:31:00.006-05:00

El Guapo here.

Many years ago, during the southeast asian war, I was a young soldier stationed in Thailand not far from the Cambodian border.
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Being of Mexican descent, my dark hair, eyes, and skin tone separated me from the typical U.S. soldier. My spanish language skills enabled me to easily pick up the local dialects. I also was fascinated by the local customs and culture.The Thai Military Police I was assigned to work with treated me as one of their own. They were all older and hardened veterans of some vicious fighting prior to being assigned to police duties.
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My experience there was not the same as most Americans. My Thai friends took me under their protection. They invited me into their world. I learned not only their language but their religious and spiritual beliefs. They were devout Buddhists.
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Thai Buddhism requires that all male children spend two years as a monk. It is a rite of passage. Many spend several years in the faith before going out into the world.
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One of my Thai counterparts was a man named Chatchai. We worked side by side for months. He invited me to travel with him and other friends to Krun Thep (Bangkok) for the new year's celebration of 2517 (by the Buddhist calender). He showed me his world from a local's point of view. When I saw anything unique or different his favorite saying was "Welcome to my world, Nongchai" (little brother)
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When my tour of duty was nearing its end. Chatchai asked me to travel with him to his family home in the mountains near Chang Mai. His sisters daughter was to be wed. It was an honor to be invited. After securing a five day pass, Chatchai, Prayune, and I headed first to Bangkok then boarded a bus from there up to the mountains.

The bus ride was long. The seats were small and uncomfortable. At every stop, the bus was boarded by food and drink sellers. Roasted meats on skewers, Fanta or Coke sodas served in plastic baggies with a straw, or folded banana leaves filled with rice were haggled over and bought by hungry passengers. People got on and off at every village. The bus never moved until all the seats were taken and the aisles filled. The heat, smells, and the jostling bumpy ride made for a few bouts of sickness for some of the children riders. The traveling became easier as the route went further from the populated areas. The fields of rice paddies gradually blended into bamboo and teak forested jungle. The rain forested hills became steeper as we traveled deeper into the mountains. The air was cooler and the ride more comfortable as the local passengers reached their stops leaving only a few riders going on to the top. Night had fallen as we arrived in Chiang Mai. We took rooms in a small hotel near the bus station to rest before continuing on in the morning.

Chiang Mai was shrouded. Green peaks protruded from the white blanket of clouds that covered the town. The clouds dissipated as the sun grew warmer. By mid morning a beautiful scenic town appeared to us. There was a park alongside a slowly moving river. Along the riverbanks were sampans and floating barges. A colorful market filled the town square. Beautiful orchids seemed to be growing everywhere. The local people wore bright colored clothes. The girls were light skinned and beautiful. This was a big difference from the plain drab clothes and sunburned skin of the lowland peasantry I was accustomed to seeing. We spent the day taking in the sights and sounds of this magical city. After experiencing an adventure or two in the town we continued on our journey further into the mountains. Chatchai's family compound was located a few klicks (kilometers) outside the city.

We arrived at the family compound late that evening. I was treated as an honored guest with a seat at the family table. My grasp of the Thai language had improved considerably over the year so I was able to communicate without a lot of difficulty. The wedding was to commence the following morning but the feast had already begun. The food was tasty and the home made rice wine eased the aches of the long road trip.

Just before nightfall, Chatchai asked me to join him and several other young men and boys in one of the main buildings of the compound. Inside the large, softly lit room was a platform containing a large Buddha. Candles and incense sticks lined the altar like area. In front of the statue, on a lower level, sat an elderly man wearing the white robes of a high ranking monk. Chatchai whispered to follow and sit with him. I squatted down and sort of duck walked across to where the men were all kneeling or sitting. (It is insulting to keep your person above the head of an elder). There was a hushed reverence in the room. I could feel the seriousness of the situation as I quietly took my place next to my friend.

One by one the men were called before the old monk. He spoke with each of them. He started with the younger boys. They were spoken to for only a few minutes. They chanted and prayed together then each boy returned to his place.

Chatchai was the first of the men to be called up. He knelt below the old monk The monk spoke softly for a few minutes then began to chant. As he chanted he began to draw designs on the top of Chatchai's head with a wooden wand like instrument. He blew a puff of air onto Chatchai's head several times as he continued to chant and swirl the wand through his hair. He grabbed Chatchai's head near the temples and behind the ears with both hands. He chanted louder. Suddenly my friend Chatchai began to tremble and shake. His eyes rolled back into his head and began to thrash uncontrollably, flopping about like a fish out of water. The monk held onto his head until the shaking slowed then finally stopped.

I sat mesmerized, During the year I had witnessed many unusual things. I had long ago opened my mind to the different culture I had found myself immersed in. This was the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. I felt honored to be a witness to whatever it was I was observing.

Several minutes later, Chatchai came back to his place next to me. With a glazed look in his eyes, he said softly "My uncle would like to speak to you, now." I nodded and slowly made my way to the spot in front of the monk. He said his nephew spoke highly of me and was happy to have me as a guest in his home. He then asked me to close my eyes and open my heart. I felt his hands touching my hair. The wand was drawing swirls and lines on my head. I couldn't really understand the chants but I just relaxed and listened to the soothing sounds. He grabbed me by my head as he had done to Chatchai. I began to feel incredibly light headed, faint almost. His arms and shoulders began to shake violently. There was no pain. I saw light. I felt dizzy. I had never felt anything like this before. He stopped trembling and released my head. It took me a few moments to regain my balance. When I was able to focus my eyes, I saw he was watching me intently. He reached into a small clay jar and gave me a small stone object coated in some waxy substance. "Wear this always and your spirit will never die." I thanked him. I used the traditional Buddhist "Wai" gesture of the palms pressed together in front of the face as if praying, then backed away to my place with the others.

The rest of the ceremony was a blur. As we filed out of the temple, Chatchai turned to me. I wondered if I looked as dazzled as he did. He smiled and said "we'll talk tomorrow."

My life changed that night. I felt a clearness in my mind I didn't know existed. My thoughts became powerful. I could feel my energy and knew that others could feel it also. I learned that next day from Chatchai the significance of what I had experienced.

Chatchai had been a monk since childhood and left only when he was called to the war. Every year after, when he was able to, he returned to the family temple to ask forgiveness and to be cleansed of the demons the war and the outside world had inflicted upon him. The ceremony I had been blessed with was that cleansing of the demons. With the demons released from my soul, the spirit within me grew to a level of strength known usually only to those squarely on the path to spiritual enlightenment. The small object given me was a small stone figure of the Buddha carried by monks to help ward off evil demons. The old monk had granted me a gift very few outsiders ever get to enjoy. Spiritual enhancement and a glimpse of the inner peace that can be enjoyed by those who seek the light.

My tour of duty ended a few weeks later and I had to return to "the world." Because of the loyalty and friendship of a few hardened but enlightened soldiers, I gained a new life. I enjoyed a sense of clarity and purpose. I enjoyed the power of the light. I reveled in doing the right thing. No, I didn't preach or bible thump. I just lived honestly and treated others as I knew I should. It has paid off many times over.

Maintaining that level of spirituality and light has been a long struggle. Fortunately those who know of the light tend to seek and find each other. With the help and guidance of my spiritual helpers, I have been able to regain some of that sense of purpose and clarity I felt in that mountain temple so many years ago.

Seek the light if you can. I'm glad I did.

How the Higher Self protects us

2009-09-28T00:05:00.001-05:00

The Higher Self is not some entity being of Light that hovers around or over us. It is within us, it is that part of us that is connected to The All, or to God. It is this connection that helps us to know whether a course of action is good for us, or not, but at the deepest levels of our subconscious.

So here we go again. If 95% of our mind is subconscious and filled with a lot of gunk, how does this affect our Higher Self? Our Higher Self is still there, pure and connected. What happens is that the gunk jams up the work. It prevents us from having access to our Higher Self, because the communications channel is polluted by our "stuff." Think of this as a clear pathway from your house to the next corner. If the sidewalks are clear, you can see down the street. If your friend is at the end of this street, wearing a white sweater and nothing is there to impede your view, than you will see your friend in his or her white sweater.

Now let's look at it with all your "gunk" or "stuff." First, let's drop down some filters. Make them gray or blackish to represent negative beliefs that you have and negative programs. These may not be things you actually think of consciously, but deep in the recesses of your mind they are there. Now try to look at your friend's sweater. Not such a nice shade of white anymore, is it?

Let's say you are a particularly negative person. We all know the type, but some people are programmed (from past lives and/or this one) to always be negative. This means they are building and making all those negative programs of theirs even stronger than they were when they first were given their shiny new house for their soul. Imagine what's going on as you see black and grey and murky sheets come flying down in between you and your friend with the white sweater. See the sweater? Of course not, because you probably can't even see your friend anymore.

Now try to walk on the sidewalk to find your way there. But wait, after a few lifetimes, or even if you've been angry or mean, or done anyone ill will, thinking malicious thoughts or even angry hateful thoughts, your path to that friend in the white sweater is getting blocked. You take a step and you trip on the garbage that you've dumped on your path to your friend. You think that you have some intuition, but what the messages you get that you pursue aren't helping you spiritually. Why? Because your path to the light is all mucked up. Your channel is polluted. That friend represents your Higher Self. It also represents your core, that part of you that should be connected to all that is Holy and Good.

So can just thinking some good thoughts or running to church help get rid of this? Not exactly, but it usually won't hurt you because you'll be with people who are also trying to feel better about themselves by connecting to a Higher Power. This can help a person to stop adding the negativity, at least consciously, for awhile.

But, you may ask, how does a person clean up their spiritual act, so that they can have a clearer path unburdened by subconscious garbage? I would say, find a healer who works with the Light to root out the dark gunk that you hold within. Everyone has dark stuff because they've been reborn. Their souls are usually still pure but their core has often been junked up. There are not a lot of healers who can go as deep into the subconscious to root this stuff out as much as Dr. Phyllis Light, in Austin, TX. Fortunately she works telepathically so anyone can do sessions with her and she has clients around the world.

If you're not ready for a session, buy one of her Personal Rejuvenizer products. They are encoded to help start clearing the gunk that plugs us up and prevents us from being the powerful spiritual beings of the Light that we all should be. She also has two books with techniques to help clear yourself spiritually. Of course if you decided that you need it bulldozed out, sign up for a session.

The White Non-White guy

2009-09-27T00:05:00.001-05:00

Back in my undergraduate days, I belonged to several ethnic minority cultural and social organizations. There were two white guys that were in our group. Not mixed race, but of a 100% European American ancestry. Yet both of them only had minority friends from one of the groups that I also belonged to. They identified with being a part of this visible minority group. Some people thought they were a little loco.

When I was talking to some people at an organization here that serves the Native American population, I was reminded of these two guys when they commented on those 'wannabe' Indians that show so much interest in being Indian. I admit that it can seem perplexing that anyone would identify themselves as wanting to be Indian when most Indians, especially those on Reservations that are not part of casino income, live a life of hardship and poverty.

Enter your past life memories.

I know a guy who was born Chinese American. While he was raised by immigrant parents, so he spoke Chinese, almost all of his friends were Japanese American. He identified with being Japanese and Japanese American, the former more than the latter, and he moved to Japan. He had been Japanease in a recent past life and had a very happy life as such, and wanted to reconnect to that part of the memory that has been in the undercurrents. I asked him when he was returning to Los Angeles, where he was from, and he said that he hoped that would be never. He wanted to live in Japan for the rest of his life.

The reverse can be true. In some cases a person can be, say, born into a family of White Americans yet be completely immersed in another culture. Look at the top chef Rick Bayless, who has promoted Mexican culture and food, has taken his employees to Mexico, lived in Mexico for 6.5 years with his wife while they traveled through the states there to study and learn regional cooking, and who speaks fluent Spanish. When I tune into Bayless, I feel the heart of a Mexican. It feels like his last three lifetimes were as a Mexican in Mexico.

This probably accounts for a comment he made when he spoke of going there for the first time as a child. He planned a family vacation there, when no one in his family had ever traveled out of the country. If memory serves me correctly, I think he was 12 years old at the time, and he said something to the effect that as soon as he stepped onto Mexican soil, he felt like he was home. Talk about reawakening a past life memory!

So who are we, really? Are we really the race or ancestry on our birth certificates or are we in truth who we remember that we are? They are obviously not always one in the same.

The Light and the Dark

2009-09-26T00:05:00.000-05:00

The Dark one could call "the absence of Light." At first glance, it seems like a simple concept, but when one thinks about all that the Light represents, God, Angels, Joy, Love, Happiness, Peace, Good, Compassion, etc. and then we flip those concepts into the negative, it can be quite a lot. So how do we become 'in the light" versus "being dark?"

When we look at our souls, in their purest form, we are looking at a glorious light. However, as we take on any negative thought or feeling, we start to add a layer of gunk to it. Add a belief, say, that "I can't win here" and now you've got more gunk. Before you know it, this has become your program, or the movie that you play, and every time something happens to set you back, you are now proving to yourself that you can't win here. So you get to be right about it.

Multiply that by many negative thoughts and beliefs over many lifetimes, and you can see how quickly that one can become an expert at not being able to "win here." This is now a big part of that 95% of your subconscious that runs your life. Now think of all of this as your gunk. That beautiful brilliant soul and the soul's memory and personality are not looking as bright and beautiful anymore, unless you dedicate your life to clearing all of that stuff out. Most people have no way to do this, so lifetime after lifetime, their level of light within gets dimmer and dimmer. Often these people end up spiritually in the dark to some degree. They can be back in the light by clearing the negative subconcious "gunk" that got them there in the first place...yet few know how to do this.

In some cases they either give up, or they decide that it's easier to work for the dark. When this happens, the decision they made in a past life will stay with them in a way that makes getting out of a gang look like a piece of cake. This is because their soul has been claimed by the highest levels of the dark. When one goes this way, they spiritually sign contracts that no amount of church going can help counteract.

This is something that goes beyond the world of possessions and negative entities. Those who have in this or past lives willingly signed contracts to help the dark often become their conduits, their agents, and all that is the opposite of God and Light and what is Holy and Pure will come through them, often trying to spiritually take down those who are trying to seek the Light.

Signing on with the dark is easy. Fear often attracts the dark, and if your fear is prolonged and traumatic enough, the dark can offer you what seems like a way out, a way toward success, an easy life, being able to control and manipulate people around you, controlling your family, your friends, making them do your bidding in the long run, making others dependent upon you for no good reason, the list goes on and on. These are not relationship issues born of love, but of the dark. If you are in one, your Higher Self will know.

My Spiritual mentor has a couple of clients who had signed such contracts in the past, but who now want to serve the Light and be freed of this. The Dark does not easily free those whom they have laid claim upon one's soul. There are layers of commitment to either the Dark or to the Light. The deeper the commitment was to the dark, the more difficult it has been to help extricate those back to the light. Often the soul is reclaimed but then the dark tries to destroy the body.

Getting the body freed of that which has been done to it goes beyond a few layers. Almost every bodyworker who is aware of light versus dark energies will attest to have worked on some people who are so dark they no longer can take them as clients if the darkness does not move out. Some bodyworkers will burn out and change professions; however, the levels and depth of which the dark can have a hold of a person who has signed contracts goes well beyond what one can access in bodywork.

Can you tell if someone is in the dark? Unless someone is very much in the dark, the average person has no clue. Why should one be concerned about people in the dark? Because they channel the energy and work that is opposite that of God and the Light, and being in their presence is unhealthy for your own spiritual development and soul. This is especially true if you are with someone who has signed contracts with the dark, in this or past lives.

This is why God gave us a Higher Self.

Past life experiences and food issues

2009-09-25T00:05:00.000-05:00

One of my friends absolutely will not eat Asian foods. When you live in a city like Chicago, with a rich and diverse offering of many ethnic foods, one cannot help but come across some incredible Thai, Japanese, and Chinese foods. When a person is a vegetarian, eating Asian foods is almost standard because there is always something for yourself and something for your friends that must have meat.

So how can an otherwise open minded lady be so averse to Asian food? One day I took a look, and it turned out that she had died in a past life after eating Asian food that she did not want to eat. She was forced to eat it, as a 'tester' for a royal court in China, until her final oopsie moment where she ate her last meal as a royal tester. This didn't just happen once, but several times over many lifetimes. She had also been a slave in parts of China in other past lifetimes, so as far as Chinese culture goes, she did not have any positive memories of it.

She also had generalized these negative memories into many negative programs about all Asian cultures. So between her stuff (the programs and beliefs that she built upon her experiences) and the past life traumas of being poisoned, plus the past lifetimes of being a slave, Asian food and Asian cultures just were not her cup of tea.

Visions but what?

2009-09-24T15:54:00.003-05:00

At some point during all of this, I would get visions during bodywork or during meditation of past life experiences. While my body was getting stronger, I was aware that I seemed to be getting very sensitive to energies. This wasn't only other people's energies but environmental ones, as well. To help me out, my mother found a product that worked with the body's subtle energy system to help make our auric field stronger. What happened after this has completely changed my life.

This product, actually a artistly beautiful piece of dichroic glass, was encoded by a very powerful healer who had devoted her life to the Light. Because I was so sensitive to shifts in energies, I could feel almost an immediate change take place. I felt like I was more alert, yet at the same time, much more deeply at peace with myself. I felt like I was bathing in Light. This healer also had developed a technique to seperate her ego from her work. Very few healers can do this, and it is important because if something happens to the healer energetically, their product is still intact and beneficial. Soon after using this incredible gift that my mom purchased for me, I called their office and the woman who answered the phone wanted to know if I was ready to do a session. Do a session? Did I need to? The office gal responded, 'Well, everyone has stuff.'

I asked for a packet of information to be sent to me. What this healer did is to go into our subconcious mind, so that we could clear the negative "stuff" that prevented life from working for us the way we wanted to. It sounded interesting. For me it was more than interesting. It was lifechanging. Eventually we would become each other's best friends in terms of all things spiritual. As I unloaded my "negative subconcious stuff," my gifts began to emerge. Today, we do a lot of great research together in the upper realms, and this work has benefited virtually all of her clients as well as others.

Early on, during one of my sessions, she told me that humans only use, at most, 5% of our mind power because other 95% works in the subconcious. It really isn't about us having a positive thought or two, because if there is enough of what's in that 95% that is negative, things just aren't going to happen for us. That is the secret to why The Secret doesn't work for everyone. My spiritual mentor and I wanted more, so we devoted our lives to clearing the negative stuff that isn't working in our lives, and then I discovered something else happened in the process. The 'noise' in my head that made up that other 95% also prevented clarity of vision. It became my mission to get this stuff cleared. After all, look what had happened to me and my life? Obviously there were reasons other than being an intuitive to dumping things that were holding me back.

I learned that many people are psychic or clairvoyant to some level, but often what they get is incorrect either some time, or much of the time. What makes a person, a seer have the clarity to see what is true and real in the other realms, versus confabuating things, is how clear they are, and how much in the light they are. When a person is in the dark spiritually, they are not working with the knowledge of the light. This doesn't mean that they don't get good information. They sometimes do, but often they get erroneous information. Worse yet, they may end up polluting the person they are "looking" at. Still others work from ego.

To truly serve God and the Light, one must be devoid of ego, and know that it is not they who are doing the work and the seeing, but that this gift comes from a higher place than we, as humans, are normally ever allowed to be.

Who Am I?

2009-09-24T14:10:00.000-05:00

At some point I was able to read a little. Even better, I'd sometimes remember that I had tried to read, and on a really good day I might vaguely recall what an article was about. It was time to go back to school. Fortunately for me, I had actually been in school during the time my life turned upside down and inside out, so I contacted them and they reinstated me.

As happenstance would have it, I signed up for a class by a maverick kind of instructor. He was a guest lecturer, who also held an impressive array of high ranking connections in the business world. He was completely unconventional because he had nothing to prove in the material world. What I loved about his teaching style is that he focused on making us think. What better gift for a girl who was still recovering from head trauma and brain damage.

We were required to do at two presentations, with notes or props but no PowerPoint. We were to be the center of attention, and to provide a compelling presentation on something we thought was important. There were no holds barred on the subject, because there was something greater at stake here in what he wanted us to learn and how he wanted us to be able to connect with our audience.

Although I had done several large corporate presentations, once it got beyond twenty people I would always get nervous. So there I was, signed up to do something that was going to be half my grade and I was petrified. Then there was the sticky issue of the topic. I'm sure that learning to walk again isn't the most compelling topic to be talking about. Most everyone else chose a topic relating to work or their career. I chose to about myself, not from ego but from where I had journeyed from.

I introduced myself, what I had just been through, and how I discovered that I had to lose my identity in order to gain my sense of self. Before the muckity muck of my life turning upside down and spitting myself out, I thought of myself in terms of my work, my career, my material goals, my family and friends. And then the muckity muck happened. I learned that NOTHING I thought I had was really mine. What you get from family and friends is decidedly different when you are in a personal and health crisis. With the exception of my parents, those who stepped up to help me were not the people I thought would be there for me. And nor were the people who I thought would be there for me actually there for me.

As a result of what I had been through, I had been freed from the chains of belief about what and how I should life my life so as to not disappoint anyone. Only when a person goes through a crisis like this do they later become blessed with knowing who are their true family and friends. Those who will not stand tall beside you in deed versus words are not worth your efforts, for they are traitors to the trust you thought was yours in family or friendship. To no longer have these people in your life is not a loss, it is a liberation so that you can reach higher. At first I mourned these losses, only to realize I was mourning for what was not real.

Most importantly, I began to uncover the ever important spiritual question, Who am I.

I was no longer walking toward the path. My feet were planted just inside the portal and I began to take the next step.

The end of the Obscure Night Approaches

2009-09-23T14:30:00.001-05:00

Perhaps the only positive thing about not being able to afford insurance is that I no longer needed to document the physical therapies that I could no longer afford. In theory I could have paid my premiums, but then I would have not have had money for my rent. I chose a roof over my head above all else. Also, because I had access to one of the best alternative bodyworkers around, my mother, this completely freed me so that she was my exclusive regular healer. She did a combination of Polarity Therapy and Reiki on me, with healing methods we learned from an organization of Mystics that we both belonged to. For a long time, due to the deep nature of the trauma, I'd 'relive' the physical trauma of what happened to my body. It took about two years before I no longer had flashbacks during bodywork. Other old traumas would surface to be released, as well. Not all of them were on the physical level. Often it was old emotional baggage, and sometimes just plain old "old memories."

One time, I saw myself as a baby, a toddler, trying to reach for a baby hair clip of mine that had fallen under a stove, and saw my mother come over to pick me up. When I shared that with my mom, she was very surprised, because she said I was two years old at the time and I was at an aunt's home. I told her what the hair clip looked like. It was interesting to know that a small child can still store memories within the subconscious mind. Inspired to help develop my psychic abilities, she did much work to help support that both on the physical and energetic levels. There would be times that I would be laying on the bodywork table, sleeping, only to awake to a burst of colors, or a beautiful golden light.

As I got better, and one of my old corporate mentors sent me a check to help me out, I had some money to experiment with a few other modalities. Although this proved in the long run to not be for my Highest Good, I did learn from a Shaman that I easily went into 'the other worlds.' Years later my Spiritual mentor would need to clear out everything that I pulled in on those journeys, and to clear my mother from what was being done to her. In the other worlds, there are those who abuse their power just as there are those who abuse their power in our world down here on earth. Those who spiritually work for the Dark will have no qualms about abusing their power, and it is not uncommon for them to use an innocent to cause harm to those who have devoted their life to the Light.

At the time I still held the belief that if you didn't look at the dark, you wouldn't be affected by it. I still had a lot to learn about the unseen worlds we live in. I did know one thing. Often during my mother's work, I would begin to see blinding, beautiful star bursts of light. Other times I would see an almost blinding white cross of light. Things were changing for me in the spiritual realm. Meditation, which I had practiced for a long time, helped me to try to connect in different ways than I had known before. A few times I heard my name being called, usually in the early morning when I was awakening. My mother said that this was my Higher Self calling to me, and I should listen.

The beginning of the end

2009-09-22T17:01:00.003-05:00

Working as a manager in a large, Fortune 100 manufacturing company, I was part of the collateral damage that happens when the Executive Suite makes poor decisions and then begins massive layoffs, requiring insane work hours by the survivors. By Wednesday nights, I had put in 40 hours, with Thursday through Saturday to go. Once I worked 21 days consecutively with no days off. Had I been paid by the hour, I would have been a rich girl. Instead, I was left drained and exhausted. I remember feeling so unhappy both with work and the person my then spouse had become, that I kept praying for a change in my life.

One Saturday I took a rare half day off. On the way to my hair salon the temperatures were slightly rainy and foggy. When I left, the temperatures had dropped and the sidewalks and streets were coated with a glaze of ice, underneath the puddles. I kept sliding on the sidewalk because black ice was all over, and with the fall of night, impossible to see. Walking would continually reveal a dangerous slick of ice underneath every so many steps.

Less than one block from where we lived, my feet suddenly flew up in the air, my body flying upwards and then I crashed down on the concrete pavement. My head hit the pavement so hard that it bounced. The second time made contact I heard something inside crack. Later I tasted blood. One of my physicians estimated that I basically did a body slam from about 4 feet. I was now going to have a huge change in my life, and if it hadn't been for dark energies mostly from my then spouse that I would not know about until many years in the future, this would never have been such a difficult experience.

I received a tremendous amount of help from my physician, whose experiences with these types of injuries was such that at some point, medically, there is not much else they can do for a person, so alternative therapies were included as a major part of my recovery. Slowly I was able to walk again, and when I went outside by myself for the first time, to walk to the corner, I realized that I was quickly passed up by elderly people using 4 pronged walkers. Nothing like a little perspective to let you know how messed up your body is.

During this time, my then ex decided I had ruined his life. Part of this was because he was no longer the center of attention. Part of this was that he realized the hefty professional salary I was bringing in wasn't happening and probably wouldn't for perhaps, forever. Part of it was his own selfishness. In the seriously debilitated physical state that I was in, he did what he could to made me feel even more useless, more dependent, and less of a whole person. It took me many years to later recognize that we, as human beings, store many programs, some positive and some negative, about who we are. While he was amoral and immoral in how he treated me, to some extent he was responding to some part of my subconsciousness. But it would be a long time before I could really understand that.

As bad of a state I was in, I refused to be treated without respect. When things didn't change except when I'd have to constantly remind him, it was clear it was because he didn't want to change. I saw this mean side of him. It wasn't just directed at myself. In the beginning I saw how he easily betrayed his friends at work in order to climb the corporate ladder. To my horror, I realized that my spouse had become the exact type of person I fought against at a previous employer. Thus, it wasn't a huge surprise when he turned his mean streak onto me. I told him it was over.

Eventually left to fend for myself when I could not even read, and had such bad cognition problems that often I could not even use a telephone due to not remembering how to use it, I also had to undergo a bizarre 2nd divorce when the ex decided to go back to court to get more money out of me. Two lawyers could not believe that any judge would have allowed his lawyer's motions to be considered. A trusted friend said this seemed more like a weird personal vendetta. I'm sure his lawyers were behind this, appealing to his huge ego and a hefty dark side.

The initial injuries had left me with internal bruises so deep that it took almost a week to come up to the surface. Many things were no longer working correctly in my body, in terms of structure. While nothing was broken, many things were out of place in enough of a way so that years later, my range of motion was still impaired as was my ability to function. With brain injuries I couldn't read, write, comprehend much at all, I had the memory of a knat, and I had 2.5 years of legal hell to deal with. I was my attorney's first brain injury client. She and her husband got to witness first hand how I would appear to understand something when in actuality, I understood nothing, and that fact would be made painfully clear to them.

When it was done, between medical visits, tests and the alternative therapies that helped me, I was left with just enough money from insurance to cover rent, half a month's food and my utilities. One of my cousins sent me money to live on, because I was too mortified to ask anyone else for a handout. I had reached a low I never thought possible. I could not function, I could not work, I prayed for brain function, and I was destitute. My mother would take me to the store, but have to watch me, because my health was so bad I'd start to deteriorate and need someone to help me to my dad's car,

I had entered a long period which mystics often refer to as The Obscure Night. It is the hellish duration where we seem to be constantly attacked and surrounded by darkness, where how we travel through this obscure, seemingly blind road through the darkness will determine whether we emerge broken or strong, and if we are ready for the next road to the journey. I would wander through The Obscure Night for several years. For me, the night was a long, painful one that would test my faith in the Light and in God.

Herbs and their Healing Powers

2009-09-22T01:01:00.000-05:00

When my mom first got into the healing arts, she also became interested in supplements, foods, and herbs. She took a course by herbalist John Christopher. I remember our Sundays, when my dad would take her to buy tincture bottles, herbs, and other supplies. As a kid, I would watch in fascination as she would make herbal tinctures, and bottle them up. A lot of study and preparation went into these efforts. Procuring the plants meant making sure she knew when they were planted and when they were harvested, in accordance with planetary timing. As with all food, everything was treated with respect, as the life force in these plants would become used for helping to heal.

I remember one time when my dad's bunions were getting so large that they were cutting into his shoes, wearing a hole in it while at the same time creating major discomfort for him. My mom had a concoction called "BF&C" or "bone, flesh and cartilage." The concoction was made from plants only, and she would lovingly apply a poultice of this to my dad's foot every evening so he could "sleep" with this for many hours. Much to my amazement, after a relatively short period of time, his very huge bunion went down to practically nothing, and he was back in normal shoes again.

Whenever my mother did anything, she stressed the importance of how we use our energy. Do we use our energy in love, or antagonistically? How do we use confrontation? Do we get defensive, do we need to belittle the other person, or do we instead look at what is really going on and address and fix those problems? So it should not be any surprise that when she did her healing work, including her herbal tinctures and using herbs to heal, that all of that, too, was done with love.

Many, many years later, I was at home when I accidentally cut myself during food preparation work. I had cut an artery. Blood was gushing out of my finger like a scary water fountain. Cold water wasn't doing the trick. I started to pass out. I reached for a homeopathic mixture called "Rescue Remedy" which is excellent for preventing fainting and other reactions of shock during trauma or accidents. It helped enough to keep me focused. Running to my office for my phone book, I left a trail of blood all over my place.

The bleeding continued, non stop. I called the guy upstairs, who I knew was home, to ask him to take me to the ER since I really didn't want to bleed to death. Then I called my mother to tell her what happened. She said, 'don't do anything till I come over.' She insisted on squirting some cayenne tincture in my water bottle and said, 'Drink it!' She went with me to the hospital. The triage nurse asked her to help me wash off all the blood because the towel I had come in with was soaked red, and my hands were covered with blood, so she couldn't quite tell what was going on. This wasn't quite like they showed it on the TV show, ER.

While we were there, she said, "this will hurt but it'll help" and she put more tincture directly on the cut. When you cut an artery, there is a lot of pain so at that point, I didn't think anything could make it worse. For a brief moment it was excruciating. And the, magically, the throbbing started to subside. The bleeding had already started to slow down by the time we got into the wash area.

When the resident looked at my cut, he looked very, very confused. He could see from the depth of the cut going through both sides of my finger that this was a serious cut, and that I had cut my artery. He asked me how I got it to stop bleeding. He was amazed that it had already begun to heal. We discussed what needed to be done next, and I left with a surgi-strip and a splint and instructions to keep it dry for a full 7-10 days, making showering quite a pain but overall I felt pretty lucky with the outcome.

Later I had told another healer friend about the cayenne healing properties and she told me that a friend of hers always carried the tincture with him, and after he got into a bad car accident (before air bags), his teeth cut through his mouth and he was bleeding all over his car. According to her, by the time the ambulance arrived, the paramedics were amazed that the bleeding had stopped and everything was already coagulating.

I still keep a couple bottles of cayenne tincture in my kitchen. On the few times I've sliced a little too closely and bled a bit, I reach for the cayenne and its antiseptic and healing properties have never let me down.

My mother left me with a small treasure trove of herbal knowledge, of which I will forever be grateful for. Most importantly, she left me with a tremendous respect and knowledge of the healing power of plants and how we use our own energy.

Why Buffy?

2009-09-21T00:10:00.001-05:00

I know that eventually someone will ask, “Is your name really Buffy?” Those who loved BTVS will not need to ask that question, however. “Buffy” is my pen name, or pseudonym. As a fan of the series, I chose this name for what she represented: a special person who devoted her life to fighting the dark, the evil and what many of us would consider in ‘real life,’ the unseen world. The Buffy that fans of the show knew was a fearless, gifted person who helped change the world and who helped all women come into their own power.

So it in honoring the mythology of that series that she is my nom de plume. Like Buffy, I also had years of martial arts training. That’s actually how I first got plugged into watching the show. The entire persona of a skinny little blond girl walking through the creepy cemeteries was a take off of stereotypes that many women victims in film had exemplified. That she’d be tossing those that attacked her like any good cheerleader would toss her pom poms made it both humorous and fun, while telling a classic story line.

And no, I am not Buffy. But I’ve had an interesting journey that I wanted to share. And I hope others will also step up to share their stories as well.

The downside of walking toward the path of Light

2009-09-21T00:05:00.000-05:00

When I returned back to the office, I was transformed from being that hard assed, Type A, massively aggressive person, (one who would put the most hard core feministas to shame) to a different person. What was easy for me to do in terms of dealing with the politics, the nastiness, the lack of boundaries, the practice by many that nothing was sacred, was something I no longer could deal ignore. The politics at this one place was vicious, and despite all my years in the Corporate world, it still has my vote as the worst most amoral political environment I had ever worked in.

Apparently God thought I needed to cross a threshold, because one of my mentors, a good friend and my boss was suddenly railroaded. He crossed a political landmine and as a result, the Vice President that he reported to decided that he wanted to get even, and get rid of him. There were three Project Managers that reported to him. I was one of them. The Director who was assigned to do all the dirty work called each of us in to talk about my boss’s sudden inability to lead and direct our team. He made it clear he wanted a consensus. I balked. I not only refused to go along with this slimy act but I lectured him on morals, ethics and doing what is right, not what is convenient to his career.

I walked out of his office knowing two things. One, that I had bought my boss more time to look for a job, and two, that I’d better call up the search firms I worked with. Karma works both ways, and often in strange and mysterious ways. My boss had told one of his mentors of the problems and he was soon offered a job at a major consulting firm. He was working on bringing me along, and bringing along our very loyal administrative assistant who was also suffering persona non grata status for not turning Judas, when I bumped into a manager I knew from another large corporation, conveniently across the street. We had lunch, I met his boss, I was offered a job. Best of all, I could look at myself in the mirror and know that I had not sold out a good friend, a boss and a mentor. My walk toward the Path was becoming stronger.

Things happen for a reason

2009-09-20T00:05:00.001-05:00

When I was in my early twenties, I overextended my life activities. I was doing martial arts four to five times a week. I was doing volunteer work. I worked in Project Management, putting in a lot of overtime. It wasn’t unusual for me to work 55 – 60 hour weeks. But I was young and silly, and I insisted on also having a social life. Well, one day it all caught up with me.

I went to work feeling, to put it mildly, like crap. One of the guys I worked with, back in the days when sexual harassment was considered “normal” worked in the office next to me. I never considered him a friend, and in fact he did what he could to make my worklife miserable since he was one of those predatory type of guys. You can imagine my surprise when he came over to give me his daily dose of garbage and instead he actually looked alarmed. He told me “You don’t look too good.” Thanks, I said, as I confirmed that I felt like crap. He said, “have you seen yourself in the mirror? I think you should.”

I nearly passed out when I realized I looked like a lemon. I had jaundice and hepatitis. A friend of mine in management took a personal day and immediately drove me home, and told me to call her and tell me where else she needed to take me because I should not be by myself. When you are in a moment of crisis, where we “go” either spiritually or physically is an indicative of our path of consciousness and karma.

For some inexplicable reason, I called my mother. I was given Reiki, herbal poultices and mostly water since my body couldn’t handle much else. My mother showed me the castor oil packs she’d put on me. Golden yellow when they went on, I’d doze off into a blissful sleep, to a Heavenly place. Castor oil is also referred to as The Palma Christi, or the Palm of Christ. Before that, I had only thought of God and Jesus Christ as something “out there” that we prayed to for salvation and guidance. I learned that God and Jesus Christ were a lot closer to us than I ever thought.

During the castor oil poultices, I found solace. It took away the pain. It also took away the toxins and the bile that had flowed outward, giving me that lemon yellow look. The packs would be grayish green after she removed them. A few days later I was strong enough to stand up on my own and walk into my mom’s kitchen. Later, with chamomile tea and lemon water, the odd lemonly look would leave my skin and my eyes, and I returned to looking normal.

During the Reiki and the Polarity Therapy, I felt a Oneness. I felt a peace in my soul that I never knew was possible, despite the discomfort of my health at the time. My mother insisted that I learn how to meditate and that I pray to God and make it a habit. “Talk to God” she would say, “because all the answers that you need are within you.” Amazingly, I only lost 12 workdays. Normally people are out for the count for at least a month, and then even at that they cannot return back to work on a full time schedule for awhile. Had several people at work not seen what I looked like, I doubt anyone would have believed I could was that ill.

Later I decided to find an MD, a Wholistic MD who would support my way of life and increased spirituality. She loved the fact that I allowed my body, with the right help, to be healed and that it opened the door to learning little more about who I was. She also knew that my choice to call my mother, the healer, was based on something special, of Faith. I began to walk toward the path of Light.

A different kind of mama, part II

2009-09-19T00:05:00.000-05:00

My mom was a walking question mark. She loved to learn things. She loved to help people. So it was no surprise that she was drawn to the healing arts. Way back in the 1970’s she had learned Polarity Therapy, which was developed by a Chicago Osteopath. What I loved about Polarity is that it worked not just on the physical aspect of our being, but on the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and etheric. It is the most sublime of all bodywork I’ve ever had. Growing up with it, I’ve probably had more bodywork than anyone in the city, since my mom worked on me as a kid.

My mom’s teacher was a lady named Emily, who has since moved to Wisconsin. Her teacher’s teacher was Dr. Randolph Stone, DO. One of the things I love about the fact that my mom was so into alternative healing was that she learned from people who were closer to the originating teachers, so at the time, people could ask questions directly to the founders.

My mother practiced three types of healing arts. Polarity was but one of them. Later I would learn that some people have healing authority. There are two types of healing, as we know it, that can often happen which gives seemingly short improvements in health issues. One is healing with dark energies, which one should avoid because it ties a person increasingly into the dark and messes with their soul. The other healing is “healing authority” and it comes to people via a variety of methods. One way is by, as a friend of mine says, ‘clearing your stuff.’

Clearing your stuff means clearing negative programming within our consciousness. Nature abhors a void, and by clearing this negativity, we allow more Light to take its place, and thereby we increase our healing authority. A very few old souls have some healing authority to begin with. It’s usually not all that they normally would have, but it’s enough so that their healing work can actually make a difference. My mother was one of those blessed souls that had the gift.

In another time, it was perfectly normal for offices to be filled with the respiration challenging heaviness of cigarette smoke. And no, we’re not talking the 1960 Mad Men times, because cigarette smoking didn’t really get the kabash put on it in offices until the mid to late 1990’s. At my earlier office jobs, I’d return home reeking of cigarette smoke, even though I didn’t smoke. Years later, during a Polarity Therapy session, (this would also later happen during a Cranial Sacral Therapy session), the room filled up with the smell of cigarette smoke, as the energy that was coming out of me was dumping what I took in.

Perhaps the most interesting change was that of my ascent into dumping the dark energies that all of us on this planet Earth are born with. There I was, on the bodywork table, when I felt some icky energies passing through my fingers. I looked at my hand, and saw dark smoky energies leaving. At this time, I didn’t know what this was. Now I realize it was only the beginning of my path toward cleaning up my soul and who I am as a Spiritual Being.

A different kind of mama, part I

2009-09-18T17:50:00.000-05:00

When I was a wee lass, my mother, who at the time was plagued with health problems, decided that it was what and how we ate that was contributing to the crux of many of our problems. My mom had all kinds of physical ailments. I had so many allergies that my arms would break out in rashes, my nose would run (I was truly a snot nosed kid), I was always tired (what little kid is tired???), and my dad took a gadzillion pharmaceuticals, many of which contributed to a terrible, terrible temper.

A new little bakery opened up in our neighborhood, amidst the gangs and the changing demographics (many people fled for less exciting neighborhoods). This little store was called The Bread Shop and it opened some time in the 1970’s by Kay Stepkin, at least, this is what I could gather from the Internet . The Bread Shop first offered, as you might have guessed, bread. But this wasn’t the fluffy stuff that claimed to build strong bodies 7 or 12 ways by eating it. This was bread you developed strong jaws from, when you tried to chew it.

Whole grain breads, what a then novel concept. It wasn’t the light fluffy stuff that you find in most stores, even natural foods stores, but earthy, hard, grainy and substantial food. You developed a strong body just from carrying it home, which in my little kid arms, was what I did.

When I went to have my morning breakfast cereal, my mom had replaced the overly sweet, processed cereals with yes, more whole grain foods. Hey, I was a kid. I needed, or thought I did, sugar on my cereal. Okay, so my mom said, as she handed me a sugar bowl. I looked inside and there was brown raw sugar. This was short lived, however, because eventually she replaced our sweeteners with low glycemic sweeteners. To this day, I am convinced that our dietary changes have saved me from diabetes, which runs at nearly 100% on my mother’s side of the family.

As a kid, having your diet changed for you was fascinating. My mom didn’t just change it, she explained why each thing was changed. As a result, I got a bit of an education in the process, about processed foods, foods with additives and colorings, both of which bloodwork tests I took many, many years later indicated that I had major allergic issues to.

My childhood allergies? They magically cleared up. My mom’s health problems took a huge turn towards improvement. My dad no longer needed his pharmaceuticals to function in the summer without sneezing all the time. Whatever chemicals that were in it that caused his anger issues were certainly not missed by any of us. We were all much happier.

This was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to change at our home. Conscious eating opened the door to a different kind of conciousness,

A different kind of child

2009-09-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

Where do I begin? Let’s just say that even as a little kid, I always felt old. Not “old” in that sense of feeling like I was 75 years old when I was 7 or 8, but old in the sense that I felt like I had lived many lives before, and that I was, well, different.

Fortunately for me, I had a mother who was in touch with who she was spiritually, so she never discounted things I saw or heard. For example, when I was around 7 years old, the elderly man who lived upstairs passed away. Before that, I would hear him fall down, and when that happened I would tell my mother, who would call the landlords (it was their parents who lived above us).

One day the grandfather passed away. Everyone was at the funeral. Well, everyone except for me. My parents thought I was too young to go to an open casket funeral. So there I was, at home, when I heard the sounds of shuffling feet and a fall. Having spent his last days on Earth upstairs, he was “home” for a visit.

My mother, God Bless her Soul, never discounted what I told her. In fact, she had dedicated her life, as an alternative healing bodyworker and lightworker, to help me develop the spiritual side of who I am, and when I was ready, I was introduced to another healer with whom my path has been blessed to know.

I remember my very first apartment. It was a dive in an architecturally beautiful building on Lake Shore Drive. Years after I moved, it was sold and the new owner did some serious renovating and I hope, had restored many of the units to their original grandeur. But back to my first apartment.

One day, I came home from work, only to ‘see’ a man, sitting on my couch. I was, to say the least, a bit freaked. I remember hearing people’s warnings about talking to ghosts. Would this ghost hurt me? Is it here to help me? Or is it here just to play tricks? That was so long ago. Now I would handle it differently. Back then, I said what I was told to say, “Go away or God will punish you!” Poof, gone, never to be an interloper again.

Paraphrasing “Law and Order,” These are our stories.