Feel Free for the Holidays

A bobcat ran in front of my car last week. Because I’d never seen one, I thought I was hallucinating. It looked like a giant, cartoon tabby cat, and it flew across the road in a fast float. At home, I did a Google search to make sure they live in Pennsylvania, and they do.

A few days later, in the same exact spot, three fat male turkeys suddenly halted my car. I imagine deer hunting season stirs up the wild critters. I thought about their ability to run free.

This time of year it’s hard to feel free. It seems we’re pinned down with present buying, cookie making, friends and relatives visits, and food preparation. As we put restrictions on ourselves, we worry we can’t possibly connect with all the people who are meaningful to us.

That bobcat was unrestricted, and those fat turkeys ran loose. Let’s all live for the moment. Float on and fly free. 

Intuition and Play Dates

When you pick a new friend for yourself, or arrange a play date for your child, the most important question seems to be, how do you feel intuitively about that person?

I seldom organized play dates for my children, because my own mother’s choices were hit or miss. She scored with Dee, who’s been in my life since we were two. She sort of missed as I entered middle school, when my three pals played games that sometimes left me out of the action. When it snowed, each of them had a snowmobile. I didn’t. Sometimes in the summer, I’d find out and feel terrible when they got together without me.

When my children were small, a mother would invite my son or daughter to hang out with her child. Sometimes, the mother and I didn’t get along, or my child and her child didn’t hit it off. With every failure, I thought about intuition. 

We think we know instinctively what works, but without a try, we can’t always know. I made the choice to let my children make their own friends. That too had perils, but those choices, along with acceptance and rejection, helped them learn to love.

In life, it’s surprising how we can randomly meet someone and feel an immediate, strong connection. Then another day, experience a giant burst of laughter with one stranger, and a huge sense of calm while in close proximity with another. Our awareness of these unseen connections astounds us, and surprises us, and makes us believe in things that can’t be proven. 

For all this, let us give thanks. 

Dead People Talk to You Too

I used to have a good psychic, Andy, before he went off the rails. During one reading, he told me, dead people talk to you.

I thought to deny it, because I had denied my abilities for so long, but then I realized dead people had talked to me my whole life. Sometimes I didn’t listen, but most of the time I let their voices come in and out of my consciousness. I wonder how often it’s remembrances rather than new spirits.

This weekend, I attended Kim’s grandmother’s funeral. After Kim grew up and stopped taking music lessons from me, she and I stayed friends, and when her mother and mine died the same year, we became closer. She gives me pearls of wisdom.

The last time I saw her grandmother Ruth alive, Ruth said, I hope you stay in contact with Kim. You’re important to her.

Ruth’s words resonate with me. Is she talking from the grave, or is it just a memory? I think that when we hear words from our passed-on loved ones, the words are meant to be heard. We are meant to pay heed.

So please pay attention when dead people talk to you. I know they do. 

Listen to the Trees

Most days I take a walk through a park, where the trees are so plentiful it’s hard to see the sky. I used to barrel through, and cajole myself to get my heart rate up. Now I get out of the car, walk a little, then stop and breathe. A book, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, taught me all about how trees communicate with each other and with me. I used to see them only as shade, now they talk to me.

Today, right after I talked to a few trees, a park employee in a truck barreled past me on his way to cut grass. That led to my morning reverie. How can he cut the same grass, week after week? I couldn’t do that job. How can the Rebecca-of-Sunnybrook-farm-type lady at my grocery store keep a smile on her face as she hears that ding from the scanner all day long? How can my attorney friend use the law to think? How can the teacher in the studio next to me listen to wrong notes that come from her student’s loud horns? I say, how cool that we all have different interests and varied abilities to tolerate specific things.

This week they’re paving the road outside my music studio. A man stands at the intersection to stop me or wave me by. On Wednesday, he wore a halo of pulsing lights to keep him safe. I hollered at him. Your hat is stylin’, I want one! I had Halloween in mind.  

His laugh thrills me days later, and his body energy brought me joy all week.

When you can, don’t barrel through life. Hear, see, smell, and feel. And listen to the trees. 

Death and Feeling Alone

Death is such an odd thing. One minute you’re rolling along, laughing, singing, or eating ice cream, and the next minute, poof. The person you loved who seemed so real is gone in the flesh.

It reminds me of the childhood game hide and seek, when it was my turn to seek. I’d close my eyes and count as I pictured everyone scattering. Then the search in the dark began. Sometimes I’d find a friend, and other times they’d disappear. I knew their mother had called them home, but there in the dark, it felt like death.

My voice student, Michael, was 21, warm, wonderful, and severely autistic. Earlier this month, I went to an info session with his support team, to help plan a possible job for him. On Tuesday, I listened to him practice for his next recital. His version of I Left My Heart in San Francisco resonated with pure tenor tones. 

Last night, his mom called, sobbing that Michael was hospitalized and probably wouldn’t make it. I told her to go hold him close and hope for a miracle. Today, she said he died.

Six years ago, the last words my mom said to me were, I want to go home. I tried to explain that she had too many broken bones from the accident, but she shook her head and pointed to the sky. Heaven was her next home. 

My thoughts swirl inside of me. I’m all alone with them.

I have no words of wisdom for you, nothing to impart regarding death that hasn’t been written before. I just know it’s frustrating. And complete.  

How to Help a Hoarder

I try my best to do some charity work every week. When I noticed on Facebook that a friend was about to move and had too much stuff, I asked her if she wanted help. “Yes!” she wrote. “I don’t want to be a hoarder!”

On Friday, I spent most of the day at Gayle’s side, along with another friend of hers, Ross. At first, she argued, I am NOT giving any of this away! That gave way to long stories about each item she collected. I acknowledged her need for necessary kitchen items, coats, and umbrellas, then decided to attack what I call shit that sits. 

Gayle, I said, this is not really your great aunt. This is just stuff she liked. At one point, tears rolled down her face, but she never got mad at me directly, which was my fear. We packed up six huge boxes for the second hand store, which Ross took directly to my car, and we filled three large garbage bags with trash. Her teenage children's clothing was stuffed in bags for them to hoard or give away. 

When we stopped for the day, Gayle’s parting words were, let me know when you can come back.

My answer is never. Yet my heart reached out to her. My mom died six years ago and I just recently gave away ten of her ugly flower paintings. Some days I sniff her scarf and feel like a child.

We all hoard something. I have a room full of music that I’ve collected all my life. I’ve played it all, but I don’t need to save it all. I guess the way to help a hoarder is the way we help anyone. Loving feelings, patience, intuition, and emotions. 

I told Gayle I’d call her to pick me up if my car ever broke down. But now I think, how soon can I ask her to help clean out my basement?

Hope, Not Pandora's Box of Evil

In Greek mythology, Pandora’s box is an artifact. As curious Pandora opened the box (actually a jar), all the evil of the world flew out. When she closed it again, only HOPE was left inside. Tarot readings, like life, are a Pandora’s box.  

  

In the 1980s in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, my first psychic mentor pretended to be a witch so the local men would leave her alone. The first time I laid down a tarot card in her presence, I did it on the steps in front of my apartment. Disrespectful, she said, buy a scarf with good vibes.

When she stopped each day as she walked her old dog, she talked about rebirth, the souls of dogs, and devil possessions. None of the three held my interest, but our discussions led me to the local library’s collection of books about ancient soothsayers, devils, witches, and magicians. Until then, I hadn’t understood the extent of paranormal beliefs.

On every vacation, I visit libraries, even in Hawaii. For all of you who love the water, please realize that to be intuitive, you can retrieve the calming effect the ocean has on your mood and body.

Now back to my own intuitive skill set. As I’ve read more about it, I feel less alone. And yet, I can’t get an answer to a few questions. If you had a psychic gift, would you use it to make money? Would you work with police, or would you consider that the dark side and stay away? Would you butt into people’s lives with unasked advice?

Just like any other job, I only have some of the answers. Yes, I deal with evil on murder cases, but yes, I believe in hope.

Book Sales Down, Other Businesses Up

I’m psychic, but I often can’t tell my own future. I thought my fiction book, Carriers of Genius: Conversations with the Mothers of Twelve Famous Men, would sell in the thousands. It’s done alright, but I haven’t hit my goal. During the past year, I pushed, then privately worried and pouted.

When I paid my quarterly taxes, I started thinking. How did my book affect my other businesses, if at all? When I looked at the figures, I realized my income had bumped up 30%, and in some months, 50%. Nothing else had changed, so it had to be my book.

I’m self-employed, and I work as both a psychic and a private piano and voice teacher. Psychics are often perceived as kooky and uneducated, so maybe my clients were shocked that I had the self-discipline to pull it off. As a teacher, I asked all my students to buy my book, and they did. In their eyes, I went from a one dimensional older woman to a two dimensional author.

Life twists us all up, and doesn’t go the way we plan. I know I have a lifetime to sell my book, and in the meantime, I took four vacations in three months. How can I care where my success hit? Like love, intuition is not an exact science. 

A Mom's Five Eyes

In the 1950s, all of our mothers had “eyes in the back of their heads”. At first I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I decided it meant two eyes in the back, underneath their hair. When a boy at school stared obsessively at pictures of Hindu’s third eye, I believed him when he said it meant a higher consciousness. That added up to a total of five eyes.

All my friends’ moms watched us in different ways. D’s mom had gorgeous skin and talked to me in private, an unusual occurrence. She barely saw us as we played outside. My own family didn’t abide silliness or jokes, but K’s mom, whose life revolved around her invalid husband, let us pretend to be horses as we ate our dinner in bowls on the floor. L’s mom baked cakes and gazed sideways at me. My mother, Lorna, had some autistic tendencies, so I thought she didn’t notice me with any of her five eyes.

Yet when I told her I had an application for grad school that also paid a stipend, she bugged me until I sent it off. I think she knew I would get it. Her insights about strangers surprised me, and her desire for me to get a “real job” pushed me to develop my artistic talents into careers that paid well.

I used to get SO irritated with my mom. The worst was when I was about eleven. Suddenly I didn’t like her voice, her smell, her hair, and her demands. Right now, I’d give my slice of the moon to get any part of her back. But we gotta make room for the babies, so all of us die.

I just read that a child’s cells are in a mother’s body forever. No wonder a mother has extra eyes and senses to help others along their paths.

In this lovely day of May, let me shout out Happy Mother’s Day to your mother. Salute!

My Sixth Sense in Museums

In school, I disliked history because of the male bent of wars and conquering heroes. Too shy to ask questions of my teachers, I felt them swirl in my brain. I wanted to ask: What did women do during war? How did children cope? What about the men too old to fight? What was everyone feeling?

That lack of history knowledge led to my loving exploration of museums. Last weekend I visited my new favorite, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. As my son and I soaked it in and marveled, a quiet wave of my sixth sense pervaded everything. In the Puritan room, I “saw” children playing and women cooking. In the Revival Jewelry area, I “glimpsed” creamy necks and beautiful faces. In the Musical Instruments room, I “heard” sweet music. On marble statues, I “saw” strong hands carving.

The older I get, the more I love history. I only wish I had studied and read more of it. There’s a Pennsylvania Dutch saying that fits. “Too soon old and too late smart.”

Business Decisions and Intuition

I work for myself, so when a business decision goes south and swirls down the drain, I can’t get mad at the boss. To combat my frustration, I pretend I’m playing the 1950s game of Kick the Can. That game must have started because few people had access to expensive balls. I know that when I played that game, I said ouch to my foot as I watched the can travel only a few feet.

Business decisions, like life decisions, can be put into mathematical formulas. Weigh one side against the other. Assess the costs and benefits. Even with all those formulas, your resolution comes down to intuition, or desire, or a combo platter of both.

Follow the Young People's Road

I have a new YouTube channel, Psychic Shortcuts-Everything Paranormal from A to Z (https://youtu.be/wj9w8wN-QLw). For a long time, I’ve talked about how psychics have dots of color in their iris as opposed to lines (E is for Eyes), tried to explain how to be more psychic (H), and been paid to help people get rid of ghosts (G).

At first, I thought I would videotape and post it myself. Disappointed, I accepted that I couldn’t, with the learning curve too high. I don’t know why I hit a wall, because I’ve had a computer since 1983, and I push myself with new technology. Like the Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road, I wanted to follow the young people’s road.

Now I know that two heads are better than one. My videographer/producer, Savi You, has so much going for him. He knows the equipment side, boosts my morale, laughs with me, and has the patience to do three or four takes. Then he edits and posts my videos. As we tape, he tells me when he’s bored, or when I speak like I’m reading, yet he never hurts my feelings. Best of all, he asks intuitive questions, which fosters new ideas.

I thought this new gig would be left brained, but it turns out to be right brained, and I’m excited and nervous in between creative juices. As a teacher, I don’t know everything, but I like to share the things I’ve learned.

Please watch the first eight episodes, and subscribe and hit the like button. I think you will laugh, and I hope you will learn. I’ve seen YouTube music videos, but now I spend more entertainment time on that young people’s road. And by the way, I spelled it Utube for years HA.

Food, Desire, and Intuition

Sometimes I see food like war. Since I’ve never been at war, I can only imagine what it’s like, but I notice similarities in my own life. Let me start with desire. I use my intuition with romantic desire, but I also use it in my desire for food. In a restaurant, it helps me decide what will make my stomach feel the best, and what seems the freshest.

Because I’m thin, some people assume I don’t have overwhelming food cravings. Let me tell you, my cheese drawer calls my name all day long. I don’t use ice because then I’ll see the chocolate and vanilla ice cream that I pretend isn’t in my freezer.

I make a lot of promises when it comes to desire. Later you can have it, I say to myself. Gluten free crackers holler for a homemade dip. Because gluten wreaks havoc on me, I eat it sparingly or I’ll get what my dad called heartburn. It’s like Pavlov’s dog, with the pup that salivates when the food bell rings. Pavlov even called the dogs' anticipatory salivation "psychic secretion.”

My dictionary says intuition is direct perception of truth. I know for a fact that I am at war with food. I want it, I fight for it, I shop for it, I slay it, I regret the emotions that get out of hand when I eat too much or too often.

It’s lucky for me that I love to read more than I love to eat. That’s another trick I play. I replace my overwhelming desire for lots of food with other things I like more, like a movie or conversation with a friend.

As in war, I feel a satisfaction when I win my battle with food, even though it’s a gratification that’s never fully realized. But anyway, I gotta go. Time for a root beer float.