Mean

My hands are having trouble typing. They don't match my thoughts. It's hard to think when someone you love has expressed their fear with rage. I don't like the feeling because it's hard to shake especially when it has come from nowhere. The four white candles, incense and an hour in solitude didn't help. I heard a shaman say a person can go way far into evil that they eventually join the broken circle which is light again. Once light has dimmed, it seems easy to fall into a darkness. The negative vibration that has stuck to my skin brings me into myself leaving no room for others. It's crippling effect can be felt in my stomach which is where the solar plexus are. I should make a cup of that nasty detox tea to protect my liver which is the organ that will suffer from this attack but my mind says no. Mind, body, spirit aren't working together now. I am becoming like the Hermit in the tarot and have a need to be still. An apology would feel so good now.

Becoming

Evenings lately are getting cooler. Two holes in the backyard still need to be dug for the posts that will hold the wisteria and the tomato plants are turning yellow at the tips. When fall is lurking I get excited. Projects around the yard get cranked up because we all know once cold arrives, everything will stop in the yard. The rake will lay where the last of hands left it. Nothing will be swept, mowed or watered. The promise of change is inevitable. This past month, people in my life married, three have died, some have moved away and others became parents. So many changes. Gardening has taught me the beauty of rebirth and an awareness that nothing really dies. It all gets transformed.

 I have decided to redirect and include more topics relating to the metaphysical. There was a time when talking about my sixth sense made certain people uncomfortable. I became mainstream and safe. But safe isn't always the best choice at least not for me. My stories are many and they wake me up from sleep now because they need to come out. I feel the timing is good and our world will benefit from the people who are brave enough to tell their story. We need to hear about subtle energies that effect health, how prayer is working to clean pollution and that it's ok to hear from dead relatives once in awhile. I'm excited! The change is coming and fall is right around the corner. Enjoy!

The First Day For A Kansas University Freshman

What a world! This story is for myself and anyone else who believes in strange things. What started out as a day to work on projects, turned into a 45 minute drive to Kansas University, again. This was day five of campus visits and I was starting to get noticed as an intruder. Books had to be returned and unfortunately, I held the receipt in my purse. It was hard on both of us. When the baby leaves home, everyone freaks. Especially when we finish each other's sentences and phone at moments of crisis with perfect timing. It's in these times of sadness when God steps in with a laugh.

When you're hungry, it's hard to concentrate so we decided to eat first. Pizza sounded good so we drove towards Papa Keno's. Massachussetts Street was packed. Newly paved roads with construction, kids everywhere and cars, oh my gosh, cars. The street musicans and jewelry artists distracted me so I missed the restaraunt. No big deal, I would just turn around. I didn't turn right in time and a string of traffic got in front of us. Two stores from the pizza shop, a car had pulled out of the parking place but there were four cars in front of us. "This is for you. If that is our spot, then you'll know this is your town," I said. Scary to say, but way cool when the four other cars drove on and we pulled right into the spot. (Thankyou God) We ate outside facing the car. "Are you sure we don't have to put money into the parking meter?" I asked. "Mom, everyone else does it all the time." Suddenly, the world felt like it had turned into slow motion. I watched the officer tag my car with a yellow envelope while I swallowed my bite of pepperoni pizza. "Ma'am. That's my car! I was going to put change into the meter,"I lied. Instant karma applies to all. I laughed that God was still in charge of things. "Too late," she said.

We had to return a book and get another. While waiting for the art history book, I noticed a coupon book with a fake one hundred dollar bill. "Gee, I want one of those, only make it a real one please."I asked. The woman came back and apologized, saying they had accidentally over charged me and owed me money. Ironically, it was a crisp one hundred dollar bill. "See, if you just go with the flow, you're going to be ok," I told my daughter. Walking back to the car, I thought my job for the day was finished but once inside, she broke out in tears crying and crying. Was this the same person who danced in front of her entire student body of 2,000 during the week of play cuts? The same girl who landed her first job in a movie where she had to kiss the boyfriend in front of his real life parents? Shy is sneaky. It pokes its little head where you don't want it sometimes. We drove to the city park where we had spent many summers photographing flowers. Butterflies danced in the air and I tried to convince her that she was like them, wearing beautiful wings that wanted to fly. My big fish had turned tiny and wee. Where were her shiny scales? "This is where you're supposed to be. I can't write you a degree for film!"I coached her.

"Wanna have coffee with me in my dorm?" she sniffed. "What if someone sees me? Won't that be embarrassing?" "No, you're my best friend and I don't care." she said. The Margaret Hashinger dorm is where the artists stay. Two guys were sitting on the steps playing guitar. Heck, I wanted to live there. When we walked off the elevator and onto the eighth floor, someone yelled, "Hey, Hannah, did you get your computer fixed yet?" She was so nice, pretty and tall. Her blonde hair was loosely pulled back and she walked with such assertiveness. The three of us sat in the room and she started working on the malfunctioning computer while Hannah made coffee. She had graduated from a small town in Kansas with 52 students and had been to London for her music. When we needed a screw driver, she ran back to her room to get one and brought her cell phone. It was white and covered with butterflies! "I didn't catch your name," I asked. "Flo." "What?" "Yes, Flo, but don't call me Florida." she said. After we shared coffee and a cookie, I needed to return home. The two of them walked me to the parking lot.

"You hungry?" Flo asked. "Yeah" Hannah answered. "Let's go over to Mrs. E's before it closes!" I watched the two of them walk away laughing and was happy to see my little fish was getting her mojo back and going with the Flo! (Thankyou God)

How Big is Your Epiphany?

I stood at the top of the stairs and watched with loving eyes how fast Charlie could type. His new punk haircut was shaved underneath with a ponytail on top. "Stop!" he shouted. Again, I watched him with love because I knew his inside and wasn't intimidated by his costume. "Quit pointing that thing at me! Stop!" was his reply. "What thing?" I asked. "The laser beam." he said. I wasn't holding a laser beam, just me pointing my love towards him but he claims he saw a blue and white stream of light come out of me and point to him. I was jealous. He was such a skeptic of these things and yet he was shown the light. Why couldn't it have been me? Shortly after, he started to "wakeup" as new agers say. Was this an epiphany?
 I had the chance to chat with Eva Herr about her epiphany when I was helping a friend with an internet radio show.  Huge, that's what it was, like a bolt of lightning out of the sky. She's forever changed and is now a medical intuitive who can predict someone's illness within ten years of it occurring with 95% accuracy. Wow. (www.evaherr.com) Wendy talked about her epiphany that started in 1996 and has changed her life forever, resulting in a book "Talking to Nightlights". (www.talkingtonightlights.com) Wow again!

I just had to look this word up. Come to find out, I wasn't even spelling it correctly. The dictionary describes epiphany as a feeling. The sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. Well what do you know? I've been having mini epiphanies my whole life, the kind that go undetected by others but are huge to me. When Mrs. G put her arm over the homeless man who was obviously drunk and asked him how he was doing, changed my world. He started crying and told us about his recent stay in the hospital. Now I "see" people on the street. When Kathy corrected her daughter through kind words, it started a chain reaction for me and I stopped over reacting as much to my children. That was twenty years ago and she probably doesn't even know how she helped transform my family.

We'll all go through changes in our life that wake us up for the better. I've heard it said that when a woman wants a change in her life, she'll cut her hair. I won't get one as drastic as Charlie's haircut but I won't be jealous of other people's epiphanies either. Light is light, whether you're shooting it out or getting clunked over the head by it. The lesson is, what do you plan to do with it once it's hit you?

Thought Forms

Darn it, Bernie Mac died. There was just something about him that I liked. When I heard about his death it didn't feel right to me. Taken too soon, geeze he was only fifty. My first thought went to his possible cigerette smoking because the paper said he had lung problems. Then I blamed his weight and imagined the steaks he must have enjoyed with booze. Still, I loved his elegance and smoothe "hey baby" way. This morning while I was reading the Sunday paper, I noticed an article about Bernie saying how he had caught flak from his brand of comedy during a surprise visit at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. He was heckled and rebuked by Obama's campaign. That was just a few weeks ago.

That must have felt awful for him and I'm sure he tried to hide his feelings through his tough exterior. But it did matter. Can someone actually be embarrassed to death? I'm serious. Our thoughts create so much of our reality and there are new books being written that talk about this in depth. "Flat earth medicine" is a term I like. Louise Hay (http://www.youcanhealyourlife.com/)
writes about the spiritual reasons of illness such as lungs representing tears that need to be shed. If you're having trouble speaking up for yourself and then wake up with a sore throat, maybe it's time to say what you need to say.

There's a great story about two mice who fell into a well and were so afraid of dying. The other mice came to see what was going on and noticed the two below so they started shouting, "die! die!" The younger mouse who could hear very well lost his will to live and when he heard the words, "die!die!" he did exactly that. The older mouse who had partial hearing started jumping higher and higher. All the while, the mice at the top of the well kept shouting, "die!die!" and he tried harder until finally he was out of the well. They looked surprised when he hugged and thanked them for telling him to "try! try!".

You can say Bernie had it coming. That he shouldn't have cracked jokes to the wrong crowd, part of the business, or that he had bad lungs. I say it's opened my eyes to the subtle energies that exist with the power of our voices. If our thoughts do create our reality, I'm going to pay attention, speak kinder, avoid judgement and eat more greens.

Guy Finley and Fearless Living

It's always such a rush when Guy Finley comes for a visit. There isn't enough time to ask him what I'd like to ask but he leaves me satisfied. I can tell Wendy gets a kick out of him as well. I would have written about him sooner but my head hurts and my mind needs to take in his words slowly instead of the usual mind explosion that occurs. I would call Guy a modern day guru who is changing the way we view our egos. He reminded us that when we get mad at someone, it's because we are expecting something from them in return. I learned a long time ago when it came to stopping an argument, I had to overlook being the winner. This is much easier with children than a mate and I think it's because we put such an emphasis on our mates to be perfect. They can soothe our egos or so we think and when it doesn't occur, we become inflamed with jealousy or anger. It was music to my ears when guy mentioned that we are heading in the right direction when we no longer have the need to claim "power" against others. We have a tape in our family that we've played throughout the years and parts of the words say, "I am my own being in the world, no head above, no head below."It's true that when we gain that inner self awareness, the need to say you have power will dissolve because it just is. Same thing with hair color. We very rarely go into a room of people and state, "I have brown hair!" Wouldn't that be so ridiculous because it's so obvious anyway.
Guy's words about us thinking that when we think, we're inside ourselves. Hum? Oh, I got it! I am guilty as charged. We aren't in the present at all when we think. I caught myself doing this by planning my next story, my next project and then becoming upset when someone I was talking to wasn't paying attention to me. My head hurts as I type this. I'm going to meditate, relax, be still and give my ego the night off.

Hot Summer Morning

Summer's breath started early this morning with a heat index of 111 degrees. As a habitual outside morning coffee drinker, I knew it was going to be a hot one. The roses are an explosion of vibrant red, sitting perky next to the grey and purple lavendar. When the wind blows just right, you can smell the spearmint where the tiny baby bunny and her mother sit. They think I can't see them. There was no sign of the squirrel who has been trying for the past two weeks to build a nest in the maple tree. It's obvious this is his first year because he fails miserably at coiling his broken branches into a circle. They fall every morning to the ground next to the wisteria. A red cardinal jumped onto the last standing tiger lily which made me laugh because the little chipmunk ran past at the same time. With a second cup of coffee came the tiny pecking sounds of a woodpecker that perfectly matched the whistling birds and the neighbor's hammer on his roof. At that moment, everything was in harmony, braided together and connected.

"Mom! Are you coming with me for the photo shoot?" Hannah asked. I don't know why we drove forty minutes away to the aboretum when our backyard is full of nature. A beginning photographer always thinks the grass is greener someplace else and a sad mom who's about to lose her last child to college will drive in the heat for the sake of connection.

Halfway there, I got a jolting sensation that the place was closed because it was Monday but it was open after all. We were the only people there who weren't working at the facility. The trails were steamy and the spongy mulch was fun to walk on. It's interesting that the butterflies and spiders are the last to arrive at summer's party. They were everywhere and the spider webs were too big and beautiful to capture on film. We almost missed the big brown snake that was sitting under the trees watching me as I ate my apple.

The dark blue winged thing that was a cross between a dragonfly and a butterfly frustrated Hannah. They were so fast.Then came the white zebra looking butterflies that also moved quickly. The prettier the butterfly, the harder they were to photograph. She didn't want to take pictures of the brown and orange ones, there were too many and yet they posed for the camera.
How typical, what we can't have feels more important that we fail to take notice of something equally beautiful that is staring at us right in the face.

Driving out of the arboretum, I mentioned how surprised I was that it was open since I had such a strong feeling it would be closed. The address on the sign was the exact same numbers to our address, only instead of sixes, they were nines. Was the universe sending me a message that we should have stayed in our own yard by showing me upside down sixes? We had fun anyway and after we cooled off in the kitchen, I reached for my cell phone. One new message. It was from Charlie, telling me the driver's license place was closed on Monday! The sent message was the exact same time that I had felt the arboretum would be closed. I may not be the best psychic around, but I do know everything has connection to each other whether it's bugs, animals or people whether you understand the game or not.