A dead friend came to visit in an unusual way, making himself known in my awareness by popping into my mind a memory from some twenty years ago. It was the type of memory that you would have no reason to think about unless something triggered it. But I could think of no logical trigger for this particular memory.
The memory spontaneously played in my mind's eye as if I were watching a recorded silent video version of it, all from the same visual perspective of the eyes of my 17-year-old self. As I watched the replay I remembered the moment as clearly as if it had just actually taken place. It made me laugh at myself, remembering my impulsive youthfulness that sometimes got mistaken for arrogance I suppose. I was having fun, being as spontaneous as this odd flashback of a memory.
At the time of the flashback, I didn't consider it a visit, just a memory. I didn't realize it was a direct answer to the intent I’d set in requesting Guidance to help me learn to make contact with the deceased. After all, I had no reason to think this friend from my past was dead.
The next day I happened to be browsing a website for my upcoming 20th high school reunion and the announcement section caught my eye. His name was there, listed as deceased…the friend from the spontaneous memory the day before. I couldn’t believe it. Could the spontaneous memory flashback have anything to do with him consciously deciding to contact me from the other side?
I sat there thinking hard about what I was doing in the moments just before the odd memory flashback had popped into my head. And I remembered that I was sitting at my desk, browsing Bruce’s website, http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/, and had read his response to a question about the use of a Quija Board for contacting your spirit guide. That conversation got me thinking about my wanting to contact my own spirit guides. (I already obviously believed in such contact because of my many previous experiences).
So I closed my eyes, took some deep relaxing breaths, and I set the intent that I'd like to have my Guidance help facilitate my practice at learning after-death communication. I asked Guidance to give me an experience where I'm in contact with a deceased person and to help me learn to recognize such an experience when it happens.
Now that I realized the odd memory flashback had occurred right after I set that intent, I was excited that I had gotten a direct experience that was exactly what I'd asked for. But I was disappointed in myself that I had failed to recognize it for what it was.
My friend Bruce tells me all the time, "Vicky, you need to pay attention to the very next thing that comes into your awareness, no matter what it is, even if it doesn't seem to fit or make sense. It will almost always be in direct response to what you were just thinking, asking, or intending."
Because I failed to recognize this after-death contact at the moment it happened, I wanted to find a way to verify that it was indeed genuine contact. Then I got an idea. I'd ask a test question, whose answer must prove that this sequence of events had indeed been a tailored experience and was indeed conscious contact from a dead friend. So I relaxed, set intent, and spoke to my Guidance again. This time I said, "Can you please show me something that proves to me the contact from this deceased person was real?" I waited but seemingly nothing happened. Well, as I've been learning, something did happen, I just failed to notice it…again.
In the most splendidly orchestrated way, the next thing that actually popped into my awareness was—not so ironically—another spontaneous memory of another friend from long ago. This memory, however, went back much farther than some twenty years. This memory went back all the way to the first grade. That would have made me around 7. That would place this memory back in time about thirty years. I knew instantly that there was no other logical trigger for this memory. The sequence of events played perfectly in my mind's eye, forcing me to relive a moment of my life from way back when.
Again, I failed to see this second spontaneous memory as an answer to the question I had just posed to my Guidance. I also made the mistake of not seeing this memory as a connection to the previous experience. Although they were very similar odd experiences, I wasn't aware of what was in store for me.
The realization of the connection, however, came a few hours later that day when I received an email from a woman who was the girl in my memory from first grade. Her email gave her phone number, and when I called she said she'd been thinking of me for a while, wanting to find a way to contact me. Finally she found my email address because of the high school reunion website. It had indeed been many years since we'd been in contact.
Well, if that isn’t a direct answer then I don’t know what is. The odds were way beyond mere coincidence. A memory of her popping into my mind just hours before she contacted me was not something I'd brush off as mere coincidence. It was a definite sign from my Guidance, letting me know in a very clear way that my experience of having the thought or memory of someone popping into my awareness was an indication of that person’s intention of contacting me.
Obviously with these two identical experiences, it didn't matter whether the person was dead or alive. Because I had no real way of confirming the first contact with the person now known to be deceased, I couldn't verify that he was actually intending contact with me. But because the second, living person could verify her desire to contact me, it gave me enough verification to trust this type of experience as an indicator of conscious contact.
Bruce is right. When there is something that comes into your awareness immediately after placing an intent, you can almost always count on it being in direct answer to what you were just thinking, feeling, asking, or intending. Our Guidance does this for us. And the way we perceive and receive information coming into our awareness is a filtration process that comes to our conscious minds in a way which we can recognize. Paying attention to this process is key.
I’ve noticed this throughout my life. And I'm sure many people have too, but we always tend to call it coincidence. You think of someone you haven't seen or talked to in a long time. Then suddenly the phone rings, and it’s them. What a coincidence, we say.
Dead or alive, we're all connected that way. Our thoughts and intentions really are powerful things.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
THE PSYCHIC PARADOX
This entry is long overdue. For some reason I’ve been holding onto this one and wanting to re-write it before I add it to my blog. It happened in June and so I’m just now getting around to re-writing this, cutting out all the extra blah blah blah that I do. I know I over-analyze things to death. Everyone tells me so. They also tell me I’m intense. I over-think things. I worry too much. And that I just need to accept things, and not ask so many questions all the time. That pretty much sums up what all my blah blah blah was about in my original version of this story. So here, hopefully, is the shorter version. We’ll see.
Basically what I’ve learned the most from this experience is that if I don’t pay attention, I miss things. Obviously that’s true, but most of the time our daily lives don’t require paying much attention to little details. We get by just fine. But there’s a lot to be delved into with those details. A lot of interesting stuff. Well, what I consider interesting, that is. But then again, I’m an intense over-thinker who analyzes things to death and asks too many questions, and blah blah blah. Ok, until I get a better handle on how all this psychic stuff works, I’m going to continue analyzing it. I can’t help it.
My daughter Abigail had spent the night at a friend’s house, and the next day on my way home from work I planned to come get her. The friend’s mother had moved to a new place, so I was faced with another round of asking for directions. I always hate going to a new place because I hate getting directions. It was a town home complex which meant a parking lot with all its entryways, turns, dead-ends, carports, speed bumps...Oh joy. Here I was on my cell phone taking in all of Abby’s directions, knowing that asking her to put the mother on the phone wouldn’t have made much more of a difference. I pictured all the lefts and rights and speed bumps and landmarks in my head as Abby relayed them, and I figured I’d at least get pretty close to the right town home. If need be, I’d call her again once I got in the general vicinity.
I was doing fine until I reached the final “left” or “right”. I couldn’t remember which one it was and I stopped the car and tried to think, replaying Abby’s directions in my head. As I sat there with the car idling, my eyes fell onto the DIRECTV truck parked directly in front of me. I was at a T and could go either to my left or right. I knew that the DIRECTV truck catching my attention meant something, as some kind of marker in helping me find Abby, although she hadn’t mentioned the truck in her directions and it wasn’t parked in front of a town home. But I felt strongly that it was a marker. I guess if I had to gauge it, I’d say it was a little bit more to the left of me than it was the right, and so I chose to turn left, sort of unconsciously deciding that that’s what the truck meant. Since no other psychic feelings were coming to mind, I didn’t give it more thought. I turned left and rounded the corner and pulled up in front of a row of town homes. I phoned Abby’s cell.
“Ok, I’m here. I’m out front, can you see me?” Abby said she was getting her stuff and heading toward the front door. When she opened it, she couldn’t see me. Since it was 5:15 pm, I asked Abby what she could see out the front door and if she was facing the sun. She said no, no sun, but she was facing a bridge. Once she said that, I realized I was completely on the opposite side of the parking lot. Somewhere along the line I had messed up on one of my rights and lefts.
Now looking back on this, if I had paid more attention to the DIRECTV truck and the fact that my attention was strongly drawn to it as a marker to find Abby, I could have gone back to that spot and taken a right instead. But since the moment had passed, this logic had escaped me. I instead drove the car around trying to come out to what I thought was the entrance to retrace my steps, but came to a dead-end instead. Abby was still on the phone with me. “Mom, I’m outside. I still don’t see you yet. I see a DIRECTV truck, does that help?”
I couldn’t believe she said that. “Yes Abs, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ll be there in a second.” Somehow, that DIRECTV truck did come in handy after all. I don’t know how or why, but 5 minutes earlier, before Abby had thought of the clever indication of the truck, I had picked up on the significance of the truck as being a marker. It’s as though I had reached into the future by 5 minutes and pulled back Abby’s thought of the truck helping direct me to her. Funny that the name was Direct, as in “direction”, although at the time I perceived the truck as being a key piece of information in finding Abby, I didn’t quite get enough information for it to prevent me from getting all my directions tangled up and causing me to drive in circles and hitting dead ends.
I say this again, and I always say this, that the more I recognize these psychic instances, the more I need to open the flow of allowing more information to come through. Maybe I can construct a set of questions to ask in an instance such as this. Perhaps something like, “Why is this standing out to me? I know it means something, but what?” Maybe if I listen and am a little patient, I’ll get more information. I’ll have to do a thought experiment and some practice to get acquainted with a process that I can easily remember and implement.
Ok, so I was able to easily drive back to where the DIRECTV truck was parked and expected to see Abby but once I got there, no Abby. I wondered why she’d use the truck as a marker when she was really no where near the truck at all. Now this was getting more confusing. Realizing I was still on the phone with her, I told her I was right in front of the truck but didn’t see her. She said, “Well I’m not anywhere near the truck, but I can see it in the distance and just figured it was a marker that you could easily find.” Wow, she was right. In fact I got that message 5 minutes ago! I just hadn’t had a way to really put the information into action for me. But like I said earlier, if I had realized that turning left at the truck was wrong, I could have then gone back to the truck and taken a right. (Looking back at that layout, it seems I would have actually reached Abby before she would have had any chance at coming up with the indication of using the truck as a marker for me. After all, she was still inside her friend’s house when I phoned her the first time. Her thought of telling me about the truck hadn’t reached her mind yet when I first saw the truck. If I had realized I needed to turn “right” at the truck since “left” was wrong, I would have driven right up to where she was before needing to get more directions from her. And actually now that I think about that, if that had been the case, then I probably would not have discovered how the DIRECTV truck had grabbed my attention. Without Abby needing a reason to use the truck as a marker, I never would have made the connection).
So I turned right and followed a line of homes and finally found Abby and her friend waving at me at the end of the block. When I pulled up to her, I asked why she thought of pointing out the truck. She said, “Well, it was the furthest thing I could see from where I was standing. It stood out. I figured you didn’t know which way to turn. Remember when you asked me if I could see the sun? I couldn’t see the sun but I could see a bridge. The bridge is over there.” She pointed. She was right. Her line of thinking was good logic, and the DIRECTV truck had come in handy. But it had all come to me too soon and didn’t make sense at the time.
If I had realized I needed to turn right at the truck and had reached her before she mentioned it, would I still have received the psychic information of the truck being a marker? Obviously yes, or I wouldn’t have thought of turning right at the truck the second time around. It’s one of those conundrums that’s so fun to think about. It’s kind of like asking, what came first? My psychic reception that Abby would have a future thought of using the truck as a marker? Or Abby’s need to use the truck as a marker? Obviously it sounds logical to deduce that if my psychic link was to Abby’s future thought, and I interceded it and thus eliminated the need for her to have that thought, then how could I have picked up on a thought that didn’t exist? It seems to be saying that Abby’s need to give me more directions along with her thought of using the truck as a marker were things that were going to happen anyway. Is this a correct line of logic? Is there anything logical about trying to figure out how psychic stuff works? Maybe not, but it is fun to ponder.
Oh, so when I said I learned from this experience the need to pay more attention to things, what I also learned is that I need to remember that the next time something stands out to me as meaning something, I will immediately deduce that it has everything to do with exactly what I’m dealing with at the moment. No more of this, “Oh that seems to mean something but I don’t know what. Oh well.” Next time something like this happens, I’m going to find the shortest, straightest line between the two things. As usually is the case in life, things are generally pretty simple and straight forward. We, however, tend to make them complicated.
Why I didn’t get the feeling of “turn right” while my eyes set upon the DIRECTV truck, I don’t know. That feeling never came to me. That’s why I think this was simply a case of me pre-perceiving Abby’s future thought. In her directions, she didn’t say to turn right at the truck, only that she could see it. The bridge didn’t come into play until I had already turned left (wrong) and called and asked her what she could see out the front door. It would have been greatly impressive if my psychic thought about the truck being a marker would have included “turn right, and she’s in front of the bridge”. Like I said, maybe next time if I have the presence of mind and the patience, I can fish for more psychic impressions and see what I get. As I analyze this right now, I realize that getting all that extra information is not entirely impossible. It would seem improbable because then I would have found Abby before asking her what she sees out the front door and before her telling me about the bridge and the truck. But an improbability is not an impossibility. And now that I think about how many times I’ve had psychic impressions of things without having a clue why I had them, I see now how our choices in life can help us to skip over some time-consuming efforts. So perhaps it is simply safe to say that my getting a little lost and tangled up in my directions was one possible outcome, but not the only possible outcome. Perhaps I had picked up on the information from one probable reality line, which happened to be the one I actually went down and so therefore was able to see why I got the psychic impression that I did. However, if I had made different choices, thus skipping over getting a little lost and thus reaching Abby before those indications of information could be played out, I would have skipped over that set of events and gone down a slightly different reality line, one just as likely probable as the actual one. I would have reached Abby before she had a need to mention the truck and therefore I would not know why the truck stood out to me.
Ooh this conundrum stuff is fun, isn’t it? Ok, so here’s the thing. The next time I have some psychic episode such as this, I’m going to do my best to find the “skip-over” probability reality line and see if things don’t work out much more easily and smoothly, seemingly remarkable. I won’t have the satisfaction of being able to analyze the line of events as I’ve done this time around, but it will be a giant quantum leap in my psychic development.
You can add “very impatient” to the list up above. Yes, I’m very impatient. I hate inefficiency. There’s got to be a reason and a better way for me to utilize my psychic abilities, and I’m determined to find out what they are. I kind of feel like with every revelation, I’m graduating to a new level of awareness. Why things can’t just be simpler for me, I don’t know. I guess it’s all a matter of our thoughts and choices. I’ll need to definitely add patience to my to-do list though. I’m sure that with patience comes grace, and through grace comes those awesome and amazing experiences that have no explanation. Ah, now I can see why I need to stop analyzing so much and worrying about details. I need to get over the whys and hows and just accept what’s before me instead of trying to over-think it.
Wow, I think I just solved my own conundrum.
Basically what I’ve learned the most from this experience is that if I don’t pay attention, I miss things. Obviously that’s true, but most of the time our daily lives don’t require paying much attention to little details. We get by just fine. But there’s a lot to be delved into with those details. A lot of interesting stuff. Well, what I consider interesting, that is. But then again, I’m an intense over-thinker who analyzes things to death and asks too many questions, and blah blah blah. Ok, until I get a better handle on how all this psychic stuff works, I’m going to continue analyzing it. I can’t help it.
My daughter Abigail had spent the night at a friend’s house, and the next day on my way home from work I planned to come get her. The friend’s mother had moved to a new place, so I was faced with another round of asking for directions. I always hate going to a new place because I hate getting directions. It was a town home complex which meant a parking lot with all its entryways, turns, dead-ends, carports, speed bumps...Oh joy. Here I was on my cell phone taking in all of Abby’s directions, knowing that asking her to put the mother on the phone wouldn’t have made much more of a difference. I pictured all the lefts and rights and speed bumps and landmarks in my head as Abby relayed them, and I figured I’d at least get pretty close to the right town home. If need be, I’d call her again once I got in the general vicinity.
I was doing fine until I reached the final “left” or “right”. I couldn’t remember which one it was and I stopped the car and tried to think, replaying Abby’s directions in my head. As I sat there with the car idling, my eyes fell onto the DIRECTV truck parked directly in front of me. I was at a T and could go either to my left or right. I knew that the DIRECTV truck catching my attention meant something, as some kind of marker in helping me find Abby, although she hadn’t mentioned the truck in her directions and it wasn’t parked in front of a town home. But I felt strongly that it was a marker. I guess if I had to gauge it, I’d say it was a little bit more to the left of me than it was the right, and so I chose to turn left, sort of unconsciously deciding that that’s what the truck meant. Since no other psychic feelings were coming to mind, I didn’t give it more thought. I turned left and rounded the corner and pulled up in front of a row of town homes. I phoned Abby’s cell.
“Ok, I’m here. I’m out front, can you see me?” Abby said she was getting her stuff and heading toward the front door. When she opened it, she couldn’t see me. Since it was 5:15 pm, I asked Abby what she could see out the front door and if she was facing the sun. She said no, no sun, but she was facing a bridge. Once she said that, I realized I was completely on the opposite side of the parking lot. Somewhere along the line I had messed up on one of my rights and lefts.
Now looking back on this, if I had paid more attention to the DIRECTV truck and the fact that my attention was strongly drawn to it as a marker to find Abby, I could have gone back to that spot and taken a right instead. But since the moment had passed, this logic had escaped me. I instead drove the car around trying to come out to what I thought was the entrance to retrace my steps, but came to a dead-end instead. Abby was still on the phone with me. “Mom, I’m outside. I still don’t see you yet. I see a DIRECTV truck, does that help?”
I couldn’t believe she said that. “Yes Abs, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ll be there in a second.” Somehow, that DIRECTV truck did come in handy after all. I don’t know how or why, but 5 minutes earlier, before Abby had thought of the clever indication of the truck, I had picked up on the significance of the truck as being a marker. It’s as though I had reached into the future by 5 minutes and pulled back Abby’s thought of the truck helping direct me to her. Funny that the name was Direct, as in “direction”, although at the time I perceived the truck as being a key piece of information in finding Abby, I didn’t quite get enough information for it to prevent me from getting all my directions tangled up and causing me to drive in circles and hitting dead ends.
I say this again, and I always say this, that the more I recognize these psychic instances, the more I need to open the flow of allowing more information to come through. Maybe I can construct a set of questions to ask in an instance such as this. Perhaps something like, “Why is this standing out to me? I know it means something, but what?” Maybe if I listen and am a little patient, I’ll get more information. I’ll have to do a thought experiment and some practice to get acquainted with a process that I can easily remember and implement.
Ok, so I was able to easily drive back to where the DIRECTV truck was parked and expected to see Abby but once I got there, no Abby. I wondered why she’d use the truck as a marker when she was really no where near the truck at all. Now this was getting more confusing. Realizing I was still on the phone with her, I told her I was right in front of the truck but didn’t see her. She said, “Well I’m not anywhere near the truck, but I can see it in the distance and just figured it was a marker that you could easily find.” Wow, she was right. In fact I got that message 5 minutes ago! I just hadn’t had a way to really put the information into action for me. But like I said earlier, if I had realized that turning left at the truck was wrong, I could have then gone back to the truck and taken a right. (Looking back at that layout, it seems I would have actually reached Abby before she would have had any chance at coming up with the indication of using the truck as a marker for me. After all, she was still inside her friend’s house when I phoned her the first time. Her thought of telling me about the truck hadn’t reached her mind yet when I first saw the truck. If I had realized I needed to turn “right” at the truck since “left” was wrong, I would have driven right up to where she was before needing to get more directions from her. And actually now that I think about that, if that had been the case, then I probably would not have discovered how the DIRECTV truck had grabbed my attention. Without Abby needing a reason to use the truck as a marker, I never would have made the connection).
So I turned right and followed a line of homes and finally found Abby and her friend waving at me at the end of the block. When I pulled up to her, I asked why she thought of pointing out the truck. She said, “Well, it was the furthest thing I could see from where I was standing. It stood out. I figured you didn’t know which way to turn. Remember when you asked me if I could see the sun? I couldn’t see the sun but I could see a bridge. The bridge is over there.” She pointed. She was right. Her line of thinking was good logic, and the DIRECTV truck had come in handy. But it had all come to me too soon and didn’t make sense at the time.
If I had realized I needed to turn right at the truck and had reached her before she mentioned it, would I still have received the psychic information of the truck being a marker? Obviously yes, or I wouldn’t have thought of turning right at the truck the second time around. It’s one of those conundrums that’s so fun to think about. It’s kind of like asking, what came first? My psychic reception that Abby would have a future thought of using the truck as a marker? Or Abby’s need to use the truck as a marker? Obviously it sounds logical to deduce that if my psychic link was to Abby’s future thought, and I interceded it and thus eliminated the need for her to have that thought, then how could I have picked up on a thought that didn’t exist? It seems to be saying that Abby’s need to give me more directions along with her thought of using the truck as a marker were things that were going to happen anyway. Is this a correct line of logic? Is there anything logical about trying to figure out how psychic stuff works? Maybe not, but it is fun to ponder.
Oh, so when I said I learned from this experience the need to pay more attention to things, what I also learned is that I need to remember that the next time something stands out to me as meaning something, I will immediately deduce that it has everything to do with exactly what I’m dealing with at the moment. No more of this, “Oh that seems to mean something but I don’t know what. Oh well.” Next time something like this happens, I’m going to find the shortest, straightest line between the two things. As usually is the case in life, things are generally pretty simple and straight forward. We, however, tend to make them complicated.
Why I didn’t get the feeling of “turn right” while my eyes set upon the DIRECTV truck, I don’t know. That feeling never came to me. That’s why I think this was simply a case of me pre-perceiving Abby’s future thought. In her directions, she didn’t say to turn right at the truck, only that she could see it. The bridge didn’t come into play until I had already turned left (wrong) and called and asked her what she could see out the front door. It would have been greatly impressive if my psychic thought about the truck being a marker would have included “turn right, and she’s in front of the bridge”. Like I said, maybe next time if I have the presence of mind and the patience, I can fish for more psychic impressions and see what I get. As I analyze this right now, I realize that getting all that extra information is not entirely impossible. It would seem improbable because then I would have found Abby before asking her what she sees out the front door and before her telling me about the bridge and the truck. But an improbability is not an impossibility. And now that I think about how many times I’ve had psychic impressions of things without having a clue why I had them, I see now how our choices in life can help us to skip over some time-consuming efforts. So perhaps it is simply safe to say that my getting a little lost and tangled up in my directions was one possible outcome, but not the only possible outcome. Perhaps I had picked up on the information from one probable reality line, which happened to be the one I actually went down and so therefore was able to see why I got the psychic impression that I did. However, if I had made different choices, thus skipping over getting a little lost and thus reaching Abby before those indications of information could be played out, I would have skipped over that set of events and gone down a slightly different reality line, one just as likely probable as the actual one. I would have reached Abby before she had a need to mention the truck and therefore I would not know why the truck stood out to me.
Ooh this conundrum stuff is fun, isn’t it? Ok, so here’s the thing. The next time I have some psychic episode such as this, I’m going to do my best to find the “skip-over” probability reality line and see if things don’t work out much more easily and smoothly, seemingly remarkable. I won’t have the satisfaction of being able to analyze the line of events as I’ve done this time around, but it will be a giant quantum leap in my psychic development.
You can add “very impatient” to the list up above. Yes, I’m very impatient. I hate inefficiency. There’s got to be a reason and a better way for me to utilize my psychic abilities, and I’m determined to find out what they are. I kind of feel like with every revelation, I’m graduating to a new level of awareness. Why things can’t just be simpler for me, I don’t know. I guess it’s all a matter of our thoughts and choices. I’ll need to definitely add patience to my to-do list though. I’m sure that with patience comes grace, and through grace comes those awesome and amazing experiences that have no explanation. Ah, now I can see why I need to stop analyzing so much and worrying about details. I need to get over the whys and hows and just accept what’s before me instead of trying to over-think it.
Wow, I think I just solved my own conundrum.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
DISCOVERED A ROBIN'S NEST
I borrowed mom’s yard clippers so that I could trim down a bush outside my back door that was starting to grow over the patio. Almost immediately after I began clipping, a robin flew out of the bush and onto the fence, squawking up a storm. I thought for a second I’d accidentally clipped her. She chirped and squawked and jumped up and down on the fence. She seemed fine except for her obvious agitation as I continued to clip away. A few small branches later I could see why she was going nuts. There was a bird’s nest in the middle of the bush, just a little bit above my eye level. I stopped my trimming and got the stepladder. There were 4 little pretty blue eggs.
It’s hard to see the nest. It’s in the middle just almost even with the fence line.
I noticed, though, that if you click on the photo, it will enlarge it. The detail of some of the following photos is outstanding, so please enlarge them to get a better look...the closed eyes of the babies, the expression on the parents' faces, etc. (Use the Back button afterward to come back).
I stood inside the doorway to the garage and watched and waited for the momma bird to come back to the nest, and she did.
Over the next week and a half I watched each day. After a couple days I noticed the daddy bird. He came and went. While there he kept watch over her and the nest. He chased off the black birds who seemed to purposely come around to cause trouble. Here you can barely see the momma sitting in the nest. Daddy is to the right of the photo in the tree.
After a week and a half the babies hatched, but only three. I couldn’t believe how big they were and how wide they could open their mouths. They were so cute!
Here’s the momma with a worm.
I was surprised to see that both momma and daddy take turns feeding them.
I noticed how long they’d have to be gone, flying out of the yard before returning with food, so I turned on the sprinkler hoping it would help give them a better chance to find worms in my yard. The daddy bird immediately swooped down into the yard and sat under the sprinkles that were gently raining down over him and he hopped around the wet grass for several minutes. I couldn’t tell if he was looking for worms or just enjoying the water! By now both momma and daddy seemed to trust us.
Here’s proud momma watching her babies.
During the next couple weeks the baby robins grew fast. In no time they were opening their eyes, and then soon covered with feathers. The nest was becoming crowded.
One night a huge downpour came, with lightning and thunder, for a good hour or so. I went out to check on the nest, not sure what I’d find. I was sorry I’d clipped away branches, but realized I hadn’t actually clipped from the top, just the sides. It seems they did have at least a pretty good covering from the branches above.
The momma bird was obviously doing what she could to protect her little ones. Here she is, seemingly fanning her wings and puffing herself out, to cover the nest as much as possible. She stood motionless throughout the storm, never leaving her babies.
As soon as it passed, she made a dash for the far fence, and I found her shaking her feathers out and cleaning herself up.
The babies in the nest were a little wet but curiously peeking out.
Each day I still kept an eye on the nest, hoping I’d get to see the day those three little birds flew away. But I missed it. It happened on a Sunday while I was at work. I phoned home and suggested to Abby that she go check on the nest. She stepped out the back door and said, “Oh my gosh! Two of the babies just flew out of the nest!” I was so happy that at least my daughter got to see this event. It was amazing that I'd phoned her at just that moment. She said the two baby birds fluttered down to the ground and hopped around, with momma bird watching nearby. Soon they were able to take off. My daughter thinks they went to the huge tree in the far corner of the yard.
When I got home, the last little bird was left alone in the nest. I hoped to God someone would come back for him, and they did. I missed his leaving as well because by the next morning he too was gone.
It’s hard to see the nest. It’s in the middle just almost even with the fence line.
I noticed, though, that if you click on the photo, it will enlarge it. The detail of some of the following photos is outstanding, so please enlarge them to get a better look...the closed eyes of the babies, the expression on the parents' faces, etc. (Use the Back button afterward to come back).
I stood inside the doorway to the garage and watched and waited for the momma bird to come back to the nest, and she did.
Over the next week and a half I watched each day. After a couple days I noticed the daddy bird. He came and went. While there he kept watch over her and the nest. He chased off the black birds who seemed to purposely come around to cause trouble. Here you can barely see the momma sitting in the nest. Daddy is to the right of the photo in the tree. 
After a week and a half the babies hatched, but only three. I couldn’t believe how big they were and how wide they could open their mouths. They were so cute! 
Here’s the momma with a worm.
I was surprised to see that both momma and daddy take turns feeding them.
I noticed how long they’d have to be gone, flying out of the yard before returning with food, so I turned on the sprinkler hoping it would help give them a better chance to find worms in my yard. The daddy bird immediately swooped down into the yard and sat under the sprinkles that were gently raining down over him and he hopped around the wet grass for several minutes. I couldn’t tell if he was looking for worms or just enjoying the water! By now both momma and daddy seemed to trust us.Here’s proud momma watching her babies.
During the next couple weeks the baby robins grew fast. In no time they were opening their eyes, and then soon covered with feathers. The nest was becoming crowded.
One night a huge downpour came, with lightning and thunder, for a good hour or so. I went out to check on the nest, not sure what I’d find. I was sorry I’d clipped away branches, but realized I hadn’t actually clipped from the top, just the sides. It seems they did have at least a pretty good covering from the branches above.The momma bird was obviously doing what she could to protect her little ones. Here she is, seemingly fanning her wings and puffing herself out, to cover the nest as much as possible. She stood motionless throughout the storm, never leaving her babies.
As soon as it passed, she made a dash for the far fence, and I found her shaking her feathers out and cleaning herself up.
The babies in the nest were a little wet but curiously peeking out.
Each day I still kept an eye on the nest, hoping I’d get to see the day those three little birds flew away. But I missed it. It happened on a Sunday while I was at work. I phoned home and suggested to Abby that she go check on the nest. She stepped out the back door and said, “Oh my gosh! Two of the babies just flew out of the nest!” I was so happy that at least my daughter got to see this event. It was amazing that I'd phoned her at just that moment. She said the two baby birds fluttered down to the ground and hopped around, with momma bird watching nearby. Soon they were able to take off. My daughter thinks they went to the huge tree in the far corner of the yard.When I got home, the last little bird was left alone in the nest. I hoped to God someone would come back for him, and they did. I missed his leaving as well because by the next morning he too was gone.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
HEALING STICK
If you’re a gamer, you’ll probably know what this means. I’m not a gamer, but my son is.
The other day the kids and I were talking about making summer plans. I mentioned Water World, one of our usual summer fun things to do. Last year I vowed to never go again, told the kids they were old enough to go by themselves with friends from now on. But heck, who am I kidding. Of course I’ll go again. First of all, I don’t really want to let my kiddos spend all day there by themselves, even with friends. And second of all, I do love going to Water World, despite this old body. (I know, I know. I’m not that old yet. But it doesn’t take much these days to get a back ache, headache, or joint pain, pinched nerves, and swollen feet from diabetes, and the list goes on and on).
David, almost regrettably, mentioned he wished we could all go to Water World, as a family, even though we weren’t a family who does things together anymore. He shrugged after he said it. (This is the first summer after the divorce, and it's still hard for him to talk about it).
I told him there was no reason why we couldn’t make plans to all go to Water World together. I told him to look at it as the more, the merrier. We usually all end up splitting up at some point anyway, a couple of us wanting to go here, while a couple of us want to go there, and in a water park that’s good. Then everyone gets what they want and it saves time. It seemed to perk his interest up a bit.
I then asked both kids how they were feeling about the divorce now that it had been about 8 months. (I take any opened door I can as an opportunity to talk with my kids about serious stuff). They both said they were ok with it and that things were getting easier. Abby mostly just listened while she played on her lap top. I know with her that what I’m saying is sinking in, even if she doesn’t have much to say. David opened up more than I thought he would, and a great conversation followed. He’s 13 and I think he’s taken the divorce harder than any of us...
I remember the night the kids and I moved into our little rental house. We’d made several trips of carloads of little things that the movers didn’t get the first time--things that were more personal and that I wanted to move myself. Finally at about 7 pm we were on the last trip, but David didn’t want to leave the old house he’d lived in for the past 3-1/2 years. Abby was her usual gung-ho self, eager to spend the first night in our new home, but I found David hiding in his room, buried under his blankets, and crying. I felt so bad for him, my heart broke. When he buries his face like that, I know that what he’s feeling are some pretty tough feelings. I sat down and cuddled him and told him it was going to be ok, but he told me he didn’t want to leave. He said it didn’t feel right to leave this house. This was all he knew. But I explained to him that we’d make new memories at our new house, and that soon it would feel like home too. I told him we aren’t just taking our stuff there, we’re taking ourselves there too. Nothing gets left behind that you don’t want to leave behind, I told him.
When we arrived at our new home with our last load of stuff and unpacked the car, there were a couple of items that we’d forgotten, so I asked David if he wanted to go back to the old house for one more trip with me that night. He said he did, while Abby asked brightly if she could stay home at our new house all by herself.
So we left her there, while we made the quick trip back to the old house which was only 2-3 minutes away. We grabbed the couple items we’d needed and then headed back. David was still quiet, still wiping away the tears. When I pulled up to our new house, all the lights were on and the front door was open. I heard what was going on before I even walked up to the door. Abby had "Grease" in the DVD player full blast, and when we walked in the front door she was singing and dancing all over the living room to one of her favorite songs. It made us laugh, but she didn’t get embarrassed and just kept bopping and singing. I joined her and David watched, enjoying our silliness. I think Abby had planned this whole picture.
Later I pulled her aside and told her how proud I was of her being so mature about all of this. I told her I loved seeing her so upbeat and spunky. And I asked her if she’d help me make things easier for David by going out of her way to make him feel positive about the move. She did, and she was wonderful. Her spirits and attitude really helped perk David up. She helped him unpack some of his personal things to make his room feel like his own place. She joked a lot and made us laugh. And soon we ate dinner and watched TV. Only a couple hours later David said to us, “You know what? I feel a lot better. It does feel like home here.” That was a really proud moment for me.
So, here we were talking about the divorce 8 months later. We’d talked minimally over the months about the divorce, but only in small bouts. I wanted to once again open the door a little more. I started out by sharing some of my feelings, both the good ones and the hurt ones. It made David begin to cry again, but he managed to keep his composure and listen. Then he shared some of his own feelings. Abby continued to listen, dry-eyed, seemingly focused on her computer game, but obviously keeping one ear firmly tilted in our direction.
As David and I wiped away our tears once more, I told him that even though talks like this are hard, they are necessary to aid in the healing process. He said, "You know what this reminds me of? In D&D there's a thing called a healing stick. I always imagine someone getting whacked with it because they say "hit me with a healing stick". It's funny to think of getting whacked with something that's intended to heal you. Isn't that ironic? But that's what these talks are like. They bring up a lot of pain but they also help us heal. It hurts to talk about some things but it makes me feel better afterwards. Sorry to interrupt. I just thought that was a good analogy."
I just looked at him in amazement. For David to take what I was giving him and turn it into his own frame of reference was amazing. I told him it was a perfect way to describe what we're going through. He asked, "Really? It is?" I told him yes, it definitely was.
"Healing can be a very painful process to go through, especially with emotional pain, but dealing with pain is part of healing. It's better to just get our emotions out and deal with them rather than to just bury it all and act like it isn't there. If we keep having talks like this, in small doses, it'll make the process easier to get through."
I'm so proud of my kids, and proud that I can instill in them a sense of self esteem and spiritual well being. I'm proud to see the effect in them.
I think the next time I see an opportunity to open this door again, the cue will be, "Mind if we whack each other with a healing stick?" The kids will know exactly what that means.
The other day the kids and I were talking about making summer plans. I mentioned Water World, one of our usual summer fun things to do. Last year I vowed to never go again, told the kids they were old enough to go by themselves with friends from now on. But heck, who am I kidding. Of course I’ll go again. First of all, I don’t really want to let my kiddos spend all day there by themselves, even with friends. And second of all, I do love going to Water World, despite this old body. (I know, I know. I’m not that old yet. But it doesn’t take much these days to get a back ache, headache, or joint pain, pinched nerves, and swollen feet from diabetes, and the list goes on and on).
David, almost regrettably, mentioned he wished we could all go to Water World, as a family, even though we weren’t a family who does things together anymore. He shrugged after he said it. (This is the first summer after the divorce, and it's still hard for him to talk about it).
I told him there was no reason why we couldn’t make plans to all go to Water World together. I told him to look at it as the more, the merrier. We usually all end up splitting up at some point anyway, a couple of us wanting to go here, while a couple of us want to go there, and in a water park that’s good. Then everyone gets what they want and it saves time. It seemed to perk his interest up a bit.
I then asked both kids how they were feeling about the divorce now that it had been about 8 months. (I take any opened door I can as an opportunity to talk with my kids about serious stuff). They both said they were ok with it and that things were getting easier. Abby mostly just listened while she played on her lap top. I know with her that what I’m saying is sinking in, even if she doesn’t have much to say. David opened up more than I thought he would, and a great conversation followed. He’s 13 and I think he’s taken the divorce harder than any of us...
I remember the night the kids and I moved into our little rental house. We’d made several trips of carloads of little things that the movers didn’t get the first time--things that were more personal and that I wanted to move myself. Finally at about 7 pm we were on the last trip, but David didn’t want to leave the old house he’d lived in for the past 3-1/2 years. Abby was her usual gung-ho self, eager to spend the first night in our new home, but I found David hiding in his room, buried under his blankets, and crying. I felt so bad for him, my heart broke. When he buries his face like that, I know that what he’s feeling are some pretty tough feelings. I sat down and cuddled him and told him it was going to be ok, but he told me he didn’t want to leave. He said it didn’t feel right to leave this house. This was all he knew. But I explained to him that we’d make new memories at our new house, and that soon it would feel like home too. I told him we aren’t just taking our stuff there, we’re taking ourselves there too. Nothing gets left behind that you don’t want to leave behind, I told him.
When we arrived at our new home with our last load of stuff and unpacked the car, there were a couple of items that we’d forgotten, so I asked David if he wanted to go back to the old house for one more trip with me that night. He said he did, while Abby asked brightly if she could stay home at our new house all by herself.
So we left her there, while we made the quick trip back to the old house which was only 2-3 minutes away. We grabbed the couple items we’d needed and then headed back. David was still quiet, still wiping away the tears. When I pulled up to our new house, all the lights were on and the front door was open. I heard what was going on before I even walked up to the door. Abby had "Grease" in the DVD player full blast, and when we walked in the front door she was singing and dancing all over the living room to one of her favorite songs. It made us laugh, but she didn’t get embarrassed and just kept bopping and singing. I joined her and David watched, enjoying our silliness. I think Abby had planned this whole picture.
Later I pulled her aside and told her how proud I was of her being so mature about all of this. I told her I loved seeing her so upbeat and spunky. And I asked her if she’d help me make things easier for David by going out of her way to make him feel positive about the move. She did, and she was wonderful. Her spirits and attitude really helped perk David up. She helped him unpack some of his personal things to make his room feel like his own place. She joked a lot and made us laugh. And soon we ate dinner and watched TV. Only a couple hours later David said to us, “You know what? I feel a lot better. It does feel like home here.” That was a really proud moment for me.
So, here we were talking about the divorce 8 months later. We’d talked minimally over the months about the divorce, but only in small bouts. I wanted to once again open the door a little more. I started out by sharing some of my feelings, both the good ones and the hurt ones. It made David begin to cry again, but he managed to keep his composure and listen. Then he shared some of his own feelings. Abby continued to listen, dry-eyed, seemingly focused on her computer game, but obviously keeping one ear firmly tilted in our direction.
As David and I wiped away our tears once more, I told him that even though talks like this are hard, they are necessary to aid in the healing process. He said, "You know what this reminds me of? In D&D there's a thing called a healing stick. I always imagine someone getting whacked with it because they say "hit me with a healing stick". It's funny to think of getting whacked with something that's intended to heal you. Isn't that ironic? But that's what these talks are like. They bring up a lot of pain but they also help us heal. It hurts to talk about some things but it makes me feel better afterwards. Sorry to interrupt. I just thought that was a good analogy."
I just looked at him in amazement. For David to take what I was giving him and turn it into his own frame of reference was amazing. I told him it was a perfect way to describe what we're going through. He asked, "Really? It is?" I told him yes, it definitely was.
"Healing can be a very painful process to go through, especially with emotional pain, but dealing with pain is part of healing. It's better to just get our emotions out and deal with them rather than to just bury it all and act like it isn't there. If we keep having talks like this, in small doses, it'll make the process easier to get through."
I'm so proud of my kids, and proud that I can instill in them a sense of self esteem and spiritual well being. I'm proud to see the effect in them.
I think the next time I see an opportunity to open this door again, the cue will be, "Mind if we whack each other with a healing stick?" The kids will know exactly what that means.
HAPPY MOTH'S DAY
No, that's not a typo. If you don't believe me, see photo.
This home made card was found waiting for me on my bed when I came home from work the evening of Mother’s Day. My ex offered to leave the kids with me that evening but I said it was fine if he had them, despite the holiday. It’s just another day. Besides, we had already technically celebrated earlier, on Friday, when I had my parents over for a visit.
The kids had made me smaller cards earlier in the week, had done favors for me, and had even given me massages.
In my book, a foot massage beats anything. And as much as my daughter hates doing that for me, I knew that when she offered one it was a gesture of true affection. My son, on the other hand, is a natural when it comes to massage and gives it freely. It’s his usual gift to me.
So all in all, I got tons for Mother’s day, pampering and home made cards all week…but then this last one was the topper. Its rustic home-made-ness was endearing—cardboard taped together with masking tape, with finger-painted designs and “YOU ROCK!” all over the inside of it—but the icing on the cake was the spelling error. I laughed so hard when I saw it. My daughter is the first to admit that spelling and reading are not her “thing”.
When she came home that evening from her dad’s, she beamed. “Did you happen to notice anything on your bed?” I told her yes I did, but that I didn’t know what it was for. She said, “What do you mean? It’s for Mother’s Day”.
“Oh really?” I asked. “It doesn’t say that.”
She marched right up the stairs and into my room. “Look, right there. See. It says, “Happy Moth… oh. Dang it!”
I hugged her and said it was absolutely perfect.
This home made card was found waiting for me on my bed when I came home from work the evening of Mother’s Day. My ex offered to leave the kids with me that evening but I said it was fine if he had them, despite the holiday. It’s just another day. Besides, we had already technically celebrated earlier, on Friday, when I had my parents over for a visit.
The kids had made me smaller cards earlier in the week, had done favors for me, and had even given me massages.
In my book, a foot massage beats anything. And as much as my daughter hates doing that for me, I knew that when she offered one it was a gesture of true affection. My son, on the other hand, is a natural when it comes to massage and gives it freely. It’s his usual gift to me.
So all in all, I got tons for Mother’s day, pampering and home made cards all week…but then this last one was the topper. Its rustic home-made-ness was endearing—cardboard taped together with masking tape, with finger-painted designs and “YOU ROCK!” all over the inside of it—but the icing on the cake was the spelling error. I laughed so hard when I saw it. My daughter is the first to admit that spelling and reading are not her “thing”.
When she came home that evening from her dad’s, she beamed. “Did you happen to notice anything on your bed?” I told her yes I did, but that I didn’t know what it was for. She said, “What do you mean? It’s for Mother’s Day”.
“Oh really?” I asked. “It doesn’t say that.”
She marched right up the stairs and into my room. “Look, right there. See. It says, “Happy Moth… oh. Dang it!”
I hugged her and said it was absolutely perfect.
Friday, April 3, 2009
MEDIUM
I love the TV show Medium. It’s very entertaining and right up my alley. It’s very accurate too. Psychic-ness really does work the way they demonstrate on the show, at least for me it does.
I don’t have nearly the exciting life that Allison Dubois has, or that of her TV character. But the psychic experiences in my life that I have had do correlate strongly with the way Allison has them on the show. One recent show was the one where she had dreams of the apocalypse. With this little information to go on, she became afraid that the world really would be coming to an end soon. In reality, however, it turned out that there was a man who kept a young woman hostage in an underground shelter. He was able to keep her there because he had convinced her the end of the world had come.
The reason why Allison’s dreams start out confusing that way—seemingly giving her incorrect or very inaccurate information--is because her first glimpse of the “overall picture” of information is but a very minute, very acutely focused framework of information, with her only link to the overall picture being her psychic connection through another person’s perspective of reality. That link gives her a very narrow perspective of focus. From that very narrow perspective of focus, it’s very easy to be too close to the picture.
At such a close range, as we interpret what we perceive, we may end up with a slightly inaccurate, slightly distorted picture of what’s real. This happens with little information to go on—we make associations to the information perceived and interpreted within that small framework. Sometimes the small framework you are tapping into is the perceived and interpreted framework created by someone else. In the case of the young woman believing the apocalypse had come, that was her framework of belief which Allison tapped into.
Emotions seem to be the worst culprits for creating these narrow perspectives of reality. It’s easy to get sucked in along some emotional thread, and the closer you get the more narrow your focus of information becomes—and the less new information you are able to perceive. I remember the many times my daughter would over-react to falling and getting hurt, and I’d hear her cry and wail and act like the whole world was coming to an end. It’s easy to get sucked in by other people’s emotional drama and easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. In this case, the bigger picture is that life has little bumps and bruises along the way and it’s really not the end of the world. So you just pick her up, kiss the boo-boo, and do something to make her smile or laugh. Then it’s all over. Your kid grows up thinking what a wonderful and level-headed person you are, when she really has no idea what heart-ache and panic you actually do go through those first few moments of hearing her cry and wail in pain. Little does she know that for a few seconds you do feel like your world is coming to an end. Thoughts race through your head, as you race to your child, that your worst nightmare has just happened, only for you to find out it’s just a scraped knee. What a relief. Utter crisis was averted and rational thinking is allowed to resume. That relief is what gives us moms that all-amazing power to appear wonderful and level-headed.
Our emotional connections with people are like that. We get misguided through misinterpretations of information, especially when emotions are steering the wheel. I’m often able to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of others, especially when they are going through something very emotional. I’ll even feel exactly what they are feeling as if what they’re experiencing is happening to me. My son and I are very close that way. When I pick up on his emotions, I experience them as if they are my own and it can be very confusing because I won’t understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. When I finally get more information coming in, then the real picture comes and it all makes sense.
BACK TO THE CRUISE….
While on the cruise I had a great little psychic experience that demonstrates this concept, although without the emotional drama link I described above. But there was a link just the same, the interpretation of which misdirected my information of the bigger picture just a little bit. But only a bit. I’m happily impressed with what I received from my perspective.
It was the last night of the cruise, which they dub the “all-night jam”. Everyone anticipates it as being the biggest show and the best time on the ship. Any members of all the bands on board get together starting somewhere around midnight and play and sing and continue nonstop until the wee hours. I remember on the first cruise, the theme seemed to be that no one was allowed to stop playing—whether this was the “rule” or just a “contest”, I don’t know—while one song led into another without discussion or pre-arrangement. With so many band members participating, it was an amazing and entertaining show. One person would move into another song, by anyone in any genre, and the others would catch on real fast and fall in line. It was great.
On this particular cruise I expected the same amazing time, but there was only one problem. The weather all week had been uncharacteristically cold and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stay for much of the all-night jam since it was to be held outside on the pool deck of the ship. I planned ahead, though, and Thursday morning bought a pull-over with a hood—what they are calling “hoodies” these days—in anticipation of a cold night.
Some time in the afternoon I had a flash of a daydream-type thought pass through my mind. In it, I saw myself standing in front of one of the inside stages in a small venue they call Bar City. The stage was a very small one, and the audience area always became over crowded during any show that was held there, despite the winding staircase that led to an over-looking balcony from the next floor up. In my vision I was the only person in the audience. I was watching the tech crew set up equipment for that night’s all-night jam. As I watched in my mind, I had the knowing come to mind that they were setting up the equipment wrong and that this would cause a circuit to blow later on during the show. The me in my mind’s eye wanted to tell the crew! I wanted to alert them to this error immediately and save them from frustration and embarrassment and save the audience from the misfortune of an interrupted jam session. But the vision was as short-lived as the blink of an eye.
I thought nothing more of it and passed it off as a elusive daydream of no significant importance. Just my mind wandering, I thought.
It wasn’t until 8:30 that evening that I began to wonder if there might be more to my insignificant daydream than I first realized. We were informed by a passerby, as we sat resting in Bar City while awaiting another show to begin, that the all-night jam had been officially moved from outdoors to indoors and that it would be taking place right there in Bar City. I was shocked and in disbelief. Surely they would have thought better than to try to pack the large expectant crowd into the smallest venue on the ship. But as she pointed to just past my head to prove it, I turned around and saw that directly behind me was a sign taped to the wall stating it was so. The all-night jam was now going to be held in Bar City following the midnight show by Acid Wish. I was thankful, as many others were, that they had decided to move the jam in from the freezing cold, but I was bummed that it had been placed in this venue. I sat there debating…did I really want to save a good spot up front for hours and sit through Acid Wish just so that I could ensure myself having a good spot for the all-night jam? Nope. I didn’t.
We meandered the rest of the evening and eventually made our way back to Bar City some time past midnight. The floor was packed. The stairs were packed. The balcony was packed. As the all-night jam took off I was lucky if I could stand on my tippy-toes long enough to see the tops of the heads on stage. The hours passed and there was still no sign of my vision coming true. The only true part so far was that the all-night jam was indeed being held in Bar City—that alone was really neat. I find it fascinating when any amount of psychic phenomena can be validated.
It was about 3:30 am when I could hardly stand on my feet any longer, let alone my tippy-toes. I had found a spot on the stairs and had a much better view. Unfortunately Jim of Barenaked Ladies, and his brother Andy were nowhere to be found. I was hoping they wouldn’t be on stage but would instead be in the audience so that I could speak with them about my book. At some point the song “500 Miles” began. I told myself I’d stay through this one but afterwards would have to definitely call it a night. Dustin had moved up closer to the stage but was still amidst a packed crowd. The crowd had thinned out somewhat, but not much. Nearly at the end of the song I saw him turn around and wave me to come up next to him.
Despite not wanting to stand on my tippy-toes again, I did move closer, figuring I wasn’t going to stay much longer anyway. Once there in the middle of the floor, among the crowd, the power went out. The lights were still on, but there was no sound coming from the stage. At first I wondered why the playing and singing were cut so abruptly, forgetting my vision from earlier in the day. But then I remembered! Could it really be that the circuit was blown? Was my vision coming true?
I couldn’t see what was happening on stage, but after "500 Miles" I could barely see Ed conducting the audience to singing "Hey Jude" to keep the jam going without breaking the “no stopping” rule until they could fix the power. A few minutes later Ed held something up high for everyone to see. He had written on a cardboard box “Blew a circuit! Working on it", and he passed it around the crowd.
I don’t have nearly the exciting life that Allison Dubois has, or that of her TV character. But the psychic experiences in my life that I have had do correlate strongly with the way Allison has them on the show. One recent show was the one where she had dreams of the apocalypse. With this little information to go on, she became afraid that the world really would be coming to an end soon. In reality, however, it turned out that there was a man who kept a young woman hostage in an underground shelter. He was able to keep her there because he had convinced her the end of the world had come.
The reason why Allison’s dreams start out confusing that way—seemingly giving her incorrect or very inaccurate information--is because her first glimpse of the “overall picture” of information is but a very minute, very acutely focused framework of information, with her only link to the overall picture being her psychic connection through another person’s perspective of reality. That link gives her a very narrow perspective of focus. From that very narrow perspective of focus, it’s very easy to be too close to the picture.
At such a close range, as we interpret what we perceive, we may end up with a slightly inaccurate, slightly distorted picture of what’s real. This happens with little information to go on—we make associations to the information perceived and interpreted within that small framework. Sometimes the small framework you are tapping into is the perceived and interpreted framework created by someone else. In the case of the young woman believing the apocalypse had come, that was her framework of belief which Allison tapped into.
Emotions seem to be the worst culprits for creating these narrow perspectives of reality. It’s easy to get sucked in along some emotional thread, and the closer you get the more narrow your focus of information becomes—and the less new information you are able to perceive. I remember the many times my daughter would over-react to falling and getting hurt, and I’d hear her cry and wail and act like the whole world was coming to an end. It’s easy to get sucked in by other people’s emotional drama and easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. In this case, the bigger picture is that life has little bumps and bruises along the way and it’s really not the end of the world. So you just pick her up, kiss the boo-boo, and do something to make her smile or laugh. Then it’s all over. Your kid grows up thinking what a wonderful and level-headed person you are, when she really has no idea what heart-ache and panic you actually do go through those first few moments of hearing her cry and wail in pain. Little does she know that for a few seconds you do feel like your world is coming to an end. Thoughts race through your head, as you race to your child, that your worst nightmare has just happened, only for you to find out it’s just a scraped knee. What a relief. Utter crisis was averted and rational thinking is allowed to resume. That relief is what gives us moms that all-amazing power to appear wonderful and level-headed.
Our emotional connections with people are like that. We get misguided through misinterpretations of information, especially when emotions are steering the wheel. I’m often able to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of others, especially when they are going through something very emotional. I’ll even feel exactly what they are feeling as if what they’re experiencing is happening to me. My son and I are very close that way. When I pick up on his emotions, I experience them as if they are my own and it can be very confusing because I won’t understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. When I finally get more information coming in, then the real picture comes and it all makes sense.
BACK TO THE CRUISE….
While on the cruise I had a great little psychic experience that demonstrates this concept, although without the emotional drama link I described above. But there was a link just the same, the interpretation of which misdirected my information of the bigger picture just a little bit. But only a bit. I’m happily impressed with what I received from my perspective.
It was the last night of the cruise, which they dub the “all-night jam”. Everyone anticipates it as being the biggest show and the best time on the ship. Any members of all the bands on board get together starting somewhere around midnight and play and sing and continue nonstop until the wee hours. I remember on the first cruise, the theme seemed to be that no one was allowed to stop playing—whether this was the “rule” or just a “contest”, I don’t know—while one song led into another without discussion or pre-arrangement. With so many band members participating, it was an amazing and entertaining show. One person would move into another song, by anyone in any genre, and the others would catch on real fast and fall in line. It was great.
On this particular cruise I expected the same amazing time, but there was only one problem. The weather all week had been uncharacteristically cold and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stay for much of the all-night jam since it was to be held outside on the pool deck of the ship. I planned ahead, though, and Thursday morning bought a pull-over with a hood—what they are calling “hoodies” these days—in anticipation of a cold night.
Some time in the afternoon I had a flash of a daydream-type thought pass through my mind. In it, I saw myself standing in front of one of the inside stages in a small venue they call Bar City. The stage was a very small one, and the audience area always became over crowded during any show that was held there, despite the winding staircase that led to an over-looking balcony from the next floor up. In my vision I was the only person in the audience. I was watching the tech crew set up equipment for that night’s all-night jam. As I watched in my mind, I had the knowing come to mind that they were setting up the equipment wrong and that this would cause a circuit to blow later on during the show. The me in my mind’s eye wanted to tell the crew! I wanted to alert them to this error immediately and save them from frustration and embarrassment and save the audience from the misfortune of an interrupted jam session. But the vision was as short-lived as the blink of an eye.
I thought nothing more of it and passed it off as a elusive daydream of no significant importance. Just my mind wandering, I thought.
It wasn’t until 8:30 that evening that I began to wonder if there might be more to my insignificant daydream than I first realized. We were informed by a passerby, as we sat resting in Bar City while awaiting another show to begin, that the all-night jam had been officially moved from outdoors to indoors and that it would be taking place right there in Bar City. I was shocked and in disbelief. Surely they would have thought better than to try to pack the large expectant crowd into the smallest venue on the ship. But as she pointed to just past my head to prove it, I turned around and saw that directly behind me was a sign taped to the wall stating it was so. The all-night jam was now going to be held in Bar City following the midnight show by Acid Wish. I was thankful, as many others were, that they had decided to move the jam in from the freezing cold, but I was bummed that it had been placed in this venue. I sat there debating…did I really want to save a good spot up front for hours and sit through Acid Wish just so that I could ensure myself having a good spot for the all-night jam? Nope. I didn’t.
We meandered the rest of the evening and eventually made our way back to Bar City some time past midnight. The floor was packed. The stairs were packed. The balcony was packed. As the all-night jam took off I was lucky if I could stand on my tippy-toes long enough to see the tops of the heads on stage. The hours passed and there was still no sign of my vision coming true. The only true part so far was that the all-night jam was indeed being held in Bar City—that alone was really neat. I find it fascinating when any amount of psychic phenomena can be validated.
It was about 3:30 am when I could hardly stand on my feet any longer, let alone my tippy-toes. I had found a spot on the stairs and had a much better view. Unfortunately Jim of Barenaked Ladies, and his brother Andy were nowhere to be found. I was hoping they wouldn’t be on stage but would instead be in the audience so that I could speak with them about my book. At some point the song “500 Miles” began. I told myself I’d stay through this one but afterwards would have to definitely call it a night. Dustin had moved up closer to the stage but was still amidst a packed crowd. The crowd had thinned out somewhat, but not much. Nearly at the end of the song I saw him turn around and wave me to come up next to him.
Despite not wanting to stand on my tippy-toes again, I did move closer, figuring I wasn’t going to stay much longer anyway. Once there in the middle of the floor, among the crowd, the power went out. The lights were still on, but there was no sound coming from the stage. At first I wondered why the playing and singing were cut so abruptly, forgetting my vision from earlier in the day. But then I remembered! Could it really be that the circuit was blown? Was my vision coming true?
I couldn’t see what was happening on stage, but after "500 Miles" I could barely see Ed conducting the audience to singing "Hey Jude" to keep the jam going without breaking the “no stopping” rule until they could fix the power. A few minutes later Ed held something up high for everyone to see. He had written on a cardboard box “Blew a circuit! Working on it", and he passed it around the crowd.
I couldn’t believe it! The information in my vision had come true. I immediately assumed the cause had been due to some equipment failure or overload, as I had experienced in my vision. The jam ended shortly afterwards as it was now nearly 4 am anyway.
I came to find out some time later, after coming back home, that the cause of the silence from stage wasn’t actually due to a blown circuit. There was word that the ship’s crew had purposely pulled the plug as a way to get us to shut down the jam! Well, that new piece of information threw me for a loop.
Why had I gotten the vision and information of a blown circuit, and consequently why had Ed passed around his sign if this had all actually been due to the power being purposely cut? I tried to verify this information with the cruise coordinators but no one had the real story.
A friend of mine, though, said she had been up front and next to the stage during the whole all-night jam and she had heard from the tech crew that it wasn’t a failure on their part, but that the plug had been pulled on them.
Ok, well since I still haven’t gotten it officially verified, I’ll have to assume that that’s truly what happened. Even so, my psychic “daydream” had indeed come true. In analyzing this, I realized that my psychic connection was through Ed’s information of his experience. He must have quickly assumed it was due to a blown circuit which is what prompted him to write the sign and pass around. And perhaps my experience of seeing the sign became my emotional thread of experience from that moment to my “past” self several hours earlier that afternoon. For the most part, what I experienced was correct. The power went out. Period. Whether it was caused by a faulty connection, overload, or the plug being pulled by a cranky ship crew at 4 am didn’t really matter. I experienced what I experienced through my own perspective of reality. I still find myself wondering why my psychic vision earlier in the day wasn’t just simply a vision of seeing Ed hold up the sign.
I see in my other psychic experiences how this process works. Sometimes the psychic picture I get is right on the money. And sometimes it’s skewed by the emotional thread connection to another person’s beliefs, thoughts, or feelings, along with my own mind making up its own interpretations of what’s true. We never really get a real picture of what’s really out there, we only always get what we perceive and interpret through our own awareness.
People often wonder why psychic information doesn’t come through as precisely as real-world information actually is. But I know from my own first-hand experience how the emotional thread connections to other people work, how their beliefs influence our own, and how our own thoughts and beliefs interpret and misinterpret the information we perceive. Our very experience of reality is more “influenced” by others (and our own awareness) than we realize.
I always say, reality is only my experience of conscious awareness.
THE CRUIZAH!
So I've been back from the Barenaked Ladies Ships and Dip V cruise for over a month now.
Came back home with a nasty cold. Silly me, I forgot to bring my PARKA to Florida! Goodness it was cold.
The week we were gone, Colorado had temperatures in the 70s and Florida in the 30s! The world must be coming to an end! Florida is the new Colorado!
Ok, I'm over it. I was just bitter that I had packed nothing but shorts and t-shirts and then found I had to stand outside in cold wind all week. One of the locals in Miami looked at us and said, "You guys aren't from around here are you? Where are your sweaters?"
We thought we'd be smart and save money by taking the cheapest transportation we could, so once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we waited outside the airport for the free shuttle bus. Unfortunately we had to wait 45 minutes--in the cold and wind. Once the bus came it took us to the train station. The train would only cost $4 per adult and $2 per child--but we had to wait an hour and a half for it, in the cold and wind. At this point I was ready to take out everything I'd packed in my suitcase and wear it.
This is what I look like with my eyes closed. Thanks Dustin.
Came back home with a nasty cold. Silly me, I forgot to bring my PARKA to Florida! Goodness it was cold.The week we were gone, Colorado had temperatures in the 70s and Florida in the 30s! The world must be coming to an end! Florida is the new Colorado!
Ok, I'm over it. I was just bitter that I had packed nothing but shorts and t-shirts and then found I had to stand outside in cold wind all week. One of the locals in Miami looked at us and said, "You guys aren't from around here are you? Where are your sweaters?"
We thought we'd be smart and save money by taking the cheapest transportation we could, so once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we waited outside the airport for the free shuttle bus. Unfortunately we had to wait 45 minutes--in the cold and wind. Once the bus came it took us to the train station. The train would only cost $4 per adult and $2 per child--but we had to wait an hour and a half for it, in the cold and wind. At this point I was ready to take out everything I'd packed in my suitcase and wear it.
This is what I look like with my eyes closed. Thanks Dustin.
Once the train got us to Miami, it was to get onto another free shuttle to take us to the airport, then we waited for the hotel shuttle to arrive to take us to our hotel.
Continuing with our save-as-much-cash-as-we-can plan, we decided to take the city bus into more sight-seeing-ness territory for dinner. (The hotel we were staying at also fell into the category of cheap and so did the neighborhood). It was another 40-minute wait outside--in the cold and wind--for the city bus to show, and $1.50 per person plus 50 cents per transfer, which got us to a bus-exchange station where we had to wait a few minutes to get onto another bus which would actually get us into the part of town that was "it". This was where it was all at, the local with the sweater told us. This was where stars like Lindsay Lohan met friends at bars!
Whatever.
I couldn't care less, and I was starved. We had to walk about 4 blocks until we found a TGIF's. Our destination was also toward the beach, which we were told was within walking distance. I was hoping a burger and fries would warm me up. So we hurried and ate, wanting to get back out toward the beach before the sun went down. We walked out, crossed the street, and there it was, Miami beach. By the way, that cold wind we've been in all day now was even colder and windier right on the beach.
After about 15 minutes on the beach I couldn't feel my hands or ears anymore and suggested we head back. Back the 4 blocks to the bus-exchange place, wait 20 minutes for the bus, then back to our hotel. I was in bed huddled under the covers by 8:30 pm!
The next afternoon it was exciting arriving at port and getting on the cruise ship.
Continuing with our save-as-much-cash-as-we-can plan, we decided to take the city bus into more sight-seeing-ness territory for dinner. (The hotel we were staying at also fell into the category of cheap and so did the neighborhood). It was another 40-minute wait outside--in the cold and wind--for the city bus to show, and $1.50 per person plus 50 cents per transfer, which got us to a bus-exchange station where we had to wait a few minutes to get onto another bus which would actually get us into the part of town that was "it". This was where it was all at, the local with the sweater told us. This was where stars like Lindsay Lohan met friends at bars!
Whatever.
I couldn't care less, and I was starved. We had to walk about 4 blocks until we found a TGIF's. Our destination was also toward the beach, which we were told was within walking distance. I was hoping a burger and fries would warm me up. So we hurried and ate, wanting to get back out toward the beach before the sun went down. We walked out, crossed the street, and there it was, Miami beach. By the way, that cold wind we've been in all day now was even colder and windier right on the beach.
After about 15 minutes on the beach I couldn't feel my hands or ears anymore and suggested we head back. Back the 4 blocks to the bus-exchange place, wait 20 minutes for the bus, then back to our hotel. I was in bed huddled under the covers by 8:30 pm!The next afternoon it was exciting arriving at port and getting on the cruise ship.
Here I am waiting in line to board the ship—thought I’d just close my eyes right off the bat and save Abby the time and trouble of doing it on purpose, ha ha. (I swear, doesn’t anybody know how to take a decent picture of me??)
That's Dustin, my ex, in the black shirt. (I have no idea who the guy in the red looking at me is).
We got on about 1 pm and the ship didn't leave til about 4 pm, so it was fun exploring for a while and then eating lunch on board.
Unfortunately while boarding I missed the opportunity to have my photo taken with Kevin Hearn--the mastermind behind the music of Barenaked Ladies. The porters keep telling you, "Don't stop, keep going. Move along. This way, this way." So while we were rushing with our luggage to board the ship, we passed Kevin unknowingly until he said, "Hi guys!"
It was COOL! If he hadn't said anything we would have whooshed right past him.
We smiled, (elated that he recognized and acknowledged us), said hi, and then ran off again like wild monkeys. It wasn't until several days later that I found out there was a photo station set up there. Not everyone would get a chance to have a professional photo taken with one of the band members--only if they were available at the time--and here we were running away! Oh well. Kevin knows how much we love him.
MORE LATER…!
Unfortunately while boarding I missed the opportunity to have my photo taken with Kevin Hearn--the mastermind behind the music of Barenaked Ladies. The porters keep telling you, "Don't stop, keep going. Move along. This way, this way." So while we were rushing with our luggage to board the ship, we passed Kevin unknowingly until he said, "Hi guys!"
It was COOL! If he hadn't said anything we would have whooshed right past him.
We smiled, (elated that he recognized and acknowledged us), said hi, and then ran off again like wild monkeys. It wasn't until several days later that I found out there was a photo station set up there. Not everyone would get a chance to have a professional photo taken with one of the band members--only if they were available at the time--and here we were running away! Oh well. Kevin knows how much we love him.
MORE LATER…!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
