My Brush with Almost Death

I was three years old but I remember it clearly. My Amish babysitter was Mary, a warm and somewhat smelly young woman who gave me all the hugs and kisses I needed. My mother told her, don’t bring food from your farm for Janice. She did it anyway, contaminated fecal matter food that gave me Hepatis A. For those of you who aren’t aware, that’s the milder form of hepatitis that we can get from food, not from needles, alcohol or hard drugs. But at my age, with no way to combat it, I was extremely sick.

No one told me directly that I might die, but I had so many clues. My parents had worried faces, as they bent over my bed and stared at my yellowed eyes. No one cried, but even my grandparents bent over my bed and leaned in closer to me than they did previously. No one cried. Everyone frowned. My sister and brother were kept away. Worried whispers in the hallway spoke of death and reassurance. All of this turned me into a listener and an observer.

Convalescence is a strange, removed state. Hours, days and weeks went by when I wasn’t part of the movement and life of my family. Quiet and immobility became mandatory. I liked being carried again, since it had ended when my brother was born seventeen months after me. When I got sick, I was lifted in and out of my bed.

Coming so close to death as a young child imbued a feeling for recklessness. I wanted risk. I didn’t want to lose my life, but it made me sanguine about death. I wasn’t scared of it, since my illness could have gone another way.

In the 1950s, hepatitis A was a major public health concern, often spreading through fecal–oral transmission via contaminated food, water, or personal contact. Outbreaks were common in institutional settings like schools, prisons, and state care facilities, and in rural or underserved communities with poor sanitation, such as Mary’s Amish farm. Living with hepatitis A in the 1950s meant enduring a prolonged, often debilitating illness with no cure, and dealing with limited medical options. The disease left lasting health consequences for many survivors

I just read online that in 1954, when I was three, there was a national crisis of hepatitis A. For example, at the Willowbrook State School for Children, 90% of patients had markers for hepatitis A, and children had a 50% chance of contracting it in their first year. Waterborne outbreaks were also documented, with cases tied to chlorinated municipal supplies and contaminated drinking water. Hepatitis A caused jaundice, dark urine, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, fatigue, and sometimes fever. The illness could last 6 weeks to 2 months before recovery, and in some cases, it left chronic liver damage.  With no effective treatment at the time, care was supportive, and focused on rest, fluids, and nutrition.

By the late 1950s, the U.S. began improving with reporting outbreak investigations, but many cases went unreported due to incomplete surveillance The focus was on outbreak control rather than prevention, and vaccination was not available until decades later. Treatment was complete, absolute bed rest.

I'm supposed to be cured but can’t give blood. Luckily I have no discernible liver damage when tested. I had to stop eating fried food many years ago, and I used to get sick from meat, so I haven’t eaten it in fifty years. I think my hep A is the cause.

Some psychics attribute their skill set to an accident or an abrupt accident or change in their lives. I don’t know whether I was psychic before I got hep A, or whether my near-death experience brought it on. I do know that my life was changed by the experience, and whenever I got a little bit sick, my parents were aghast and rallied around me like I might disappear. 

Settling Into Your Life

As soon as I get used to one change, it seems another one happens. Because I’m 75, which seems to be ¾ of the way to dead, I constantly assess my life and choices. Am I right to think I should move to a nursing home at 87? Should I wait until 90? Or should I stay in my beautiful paid-off home until my kids start bossing me out of it? 

Friends are a big deal for all of us. The problem is that so many of them drop off. One friend wanted me to do a trivia night with her and “win one for the team.” I had to let her know that I could do multiplication of double numbers in my head, but trivia is impossible. The answers would come to me in the middle of the night or the next day, not within one minute. She got so frustrated with me. Of course, we all have different brains. Mine works quickly but not with facts that I don’t care about. Friends come and go. If we are suddenly not important in their reality, then it’s best to be gracious and let go. My mother, Lorna, told me, pay attention to the ones who like you, Janice. One time that led to a date with an autistic man who snorted and grunted through a movie at the theatre, but mostly it’s served me well.

My intuition is useful with decisions. Today it says, why do you have to decide now, whether to live where you are or move? So apt. The only thing I have to do is to keep cleaning out my junk. Don’t have a yard sale like my sister did, to make her feel crazy. Just head over to the secondhand store on the weekend and give it away.

I keep thinking there is something I can actually do to stop the bumps that keep arriving on my skin, that itch and burn. But it’s a result of my radiation treatment for breast cancer, and the doctor told me it could be a year of that. So I must settle into that as my reality. I decided on a treatment for one part of my body, which messed with other parts. Just like all my decisions, they aren’t clear cut. 

I must settle into my life. I have to rest more and be astounded that my old body can’t keep up with my mind. That I can’t work four jobs anymore. That I can’t eat ice cream more than once a week. That seven cancer doctors said don’t drink any alcohol ever again. Oh the thought of life without champagne is a sad one. 

But I will not let anything keep me from being an optimist. I have a new grandchild, a girl this time. I can buy princess dresses for her in the future. I can take her shopping for back to school clothes when she’s older. She might like candy land for more years than my grandson did. 

I will remind myself of the good things and settle into that life.

Labels and Your Abilities

My psychic work meant decades of study, as I slowly eased myself into it. I got more heavily involved when I began my murder work with police in 1992, on a murder two towns over. The cops were content with my being called a psychic. Before that, people wanted to know exactly what I did. I compiled a list here in case you have one or more of these abilities and care to label them.

Clairvoyance: The supernatural ability to gain information about an object, person, or location without using the physical senses. I definitely do that, but what a hard word to spell and understand.

Precognition: The ability to see or know about events before they happen. I have this. If danger is involved and nothing has happened previously, it’s so hard to get people to understand this is a real danger.

Psychometry: The claimed ability to discover facts about an event or person by touching or being near inanimate objects associated with them. Most detectives wanted to show me pictures, ugh. That was the worst. I can see the victim in my mind’s eye, why would I want to see it in a gory situation. No thanks. In my readings, people like to send or show me pictures. Not needed, thank you though.

Telepathy: The transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any physical channels. I like to pretend I can do this with a potential romantic partner, but it’s a stretch. I used to try to do it with my children, to get them to do a chore about which I was sick of hounding them.

ESP (Extrasensory Perception): Perception occurring independently of the known sensory processes, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. Yes, I’ve had ESP for as long as I can remember.

Psychokinesis: Also known as telekinesis, it is the supposed ability to move objects with the mind. This I’ve never been able to do. I’ve tried to move things, but then it all just seems silly. Why would I need this, except as a party trick to show off? I can stand up and move things with my hands.

Ok, go to town on this, if you have any of these abilities. Concentrate. Practice. Research. Explore. Good luck! 

Shamans and Second Sight

I take a lot of walks with my high school pal, Hannah. I feel so good after our strenuous exercise, and it’s great that we help solve each other’s problems, but the best part is that we commune with nature. Doing so helps us use that experience to guide others to a new state of healing. For her, it’s massage. For me, it’s both my music and psychic work.

When my body is tired, I am more likely to float into my intuitive brain thinking, rather than having to tell myself to make that shift. The antenna in my brain goes up all by itself. Maybe the exercise lessens my anxiety and helps me to move there.

I read that wildlife helps us with healing. The wasps on my back porch and the bird on her nest on my front porch both remind me of the season change. I can’t let myself get stuck, and I can’t give up. One of the hard parts about aging is not the increase in doctor visits to help with what I call my old car, but to keep going when a problem occurs. The other morning my computer wasn’t working and my hair dryer died. At first, I wanted to crawl back under my covers for the rest of the day, but I soldiered on and had all good luck for the rest of the day.

I read about psychic ability in other cultures. I loved visiting Scotland, the most mystical country I’ve visited. In Scotland it is common for a child to inherit his or her father’s gift for “second sight”. I read about how in Native American and Indigenous traditions, shamanism is embraced openly. Shamans connect with the spirit world via a trancelike state. That is what I do when I give a reading. No wonder it feels like I can’t hear when I immerse myself in another dimension.

I have lots of autistic tendencies, with many autistic relatives on my mother’s side. Brain scans of autistic and schizophrenic people had slight differences from the average person in their caudate-putamens. This suggested that their seat of intuition was somewhat altered, for better or worse. It is most likely possible for them to have gifts that allow them to perceive or interpret information that is normally filtered out.

Gotta dash. My favorite local park, Coleman Park, is having an Earth Day walk. Happy Earth Day! Let’s try to appreciate nature.

Live for Today, Don't Get Stuck

My trip to Europe this year had some gorgeous sites. In London, the River Thames cruise at night, the Tower of London sanctuary for the Crown Jewels and its prison, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wales was castles and cathedrals, with warm people in small, old towns.

My contact with other people is worth mentioning. I’ll always remember two times when I went into a bar to rest and recharge. The first barkeep taught me a long forgotten way to treat myself to the ritualization leaf tea. Another bartender in a rundown bar in the middle of Wales, listened to my complaints about my blister the size of Greenland, and said, “What you need is a proper cup of tea.” He made it and I did need it.

One lady a year younger than I am was on our tour. She stared at me a lot and then launched in. “How can you travel ALL ALONE?” she asked, two days in a row. She had helmet hair, which she must have had “done” in the fifties style the day before the tour, and now she attacked with hair spray to keep it going. “Do you wash your hair EVERY DAY?” she asked me, then the next day, “is your hair naturally curly?” Her questions seemed so odd, but she had a connection so I like to exploit any connection. When she asked me again, “How can you do it? How can you travel alone?” I was a bit snide. “One foot starts, the other foot follows. Out of my house, into the car, into the airport, onto the plane right foot first. Into the car, then the hotel, in the morning onto the bus, off it to see Stonehedge and that’s it.”

Stonehedge was the most spiritual of all my jaunts. The wind was present, and the sun. The air crisp, the crowds light. The burial mounds in the distance moved me as much as the huge stones. I could easily see why people buried their loved ones in that peaceful spot in the countryside.

Travel sends me to other worlds. It makes me think in new ways. Due to the Helmet Head Lady, I came home feeling even braver, which is perfect for old age. The bartenders made me feel loved, and Stonehedge made me accept the passage of time, thousands of years of people before and after me. Life is profound. We just have to live it and try not to get stuck.

Ouija Boards

A Ouija board became my first introduction to anything paranormal. I had an older sister, so I asked her friend Pammy to explain it to me. I heard about it from horror movies and stories of seances. 

She told me I was too young to use it, and she showed me what she called one of her family parlor games. She didn’t tell me that the small, heart-shaped device on canasters was called a planchette, or that the name derives from the French and German words for “yes” (oui and ja). 

She did tell me that a person had to think of a question and it would answer yes or no. She wouldn’t let me borrow it to take it home. Never use the Ouija Board alone, she said. She told me a person had to be strong and not sick, and only special people could touch it. And that when finished, we had to say goodbye to let the spirits know we were finished talking to them.

I was bewitched and scared. To this day, I haven’t messed with one. I doubt I ever will. I get the creepy crawlers even thinking about it. Some people see it as harmless fun, but many others, especially those with religious perspectives, think it’s dangerous. I don’t see danger, I just feel a great big stay away.

How Did I Not Know?

In November, after a mammogram, I was diagnosed with a tiny, cancerous breast tumor. I’ve been so lucky in my life that I was shocked. Someone asked, as a psychic, how did you not know?

I had told my doctor for many months that something was really wrong with me, really wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. He just stared at me.

With this bad health news, I try to be gracious and accepting but it’s not so easy. The biopsy hurt, and my surgery pain was rough, but way easier than labor or a bad tooth experience. I guess the worst thing is the worry. How will my radiation go? Will cancer come back in another form or mess with another body part?

I wish I had answers for all the other people who have a worst cancer case than I do. I want to change their sad stories. I’d like to change my own sad story, even though it’s been relatively easy, as the surrounding cells have clear margins. The other women have been so sweet to me, I call it the Cancer Club, but they call me a Pink Sister. When they ask my story and I hesitate because mine is easier, they tell me it’s hard for all of us.

No one can know everything, even the smartest of the smart. My worries seem to be receding as I learn more and move through the process. People have been so kind to me, checking in with me, sending love, listening to my woes.

We can all give love. We all have terrible things happen to us. I did what I could to lead a healthy life, and I will continue with that. When I wailed to the surgeon, I’ve been so careful with my eating and exercising habits, and so little alcohol, so why did this happen to me? She leaned in and said, “You’re old, just old. That’s why.” I couldn’t have done anything about that fact.

One Case That Haunts Me

I have received threats from murder perpetrator’s families, so I can’t give close details on a case that haunts me. I can say that the killer is in jail, seemingly without my help. I first reached out to the detective in the case, an old school man who had a lot of set opinions. He agreed that we should meet, and my intellect more than my psychic ability led him to listen to my ideas.

He insisted on taping the conversation. That made me uncomfortable, especially when I “saw” how the woman died, while I cried and grabbed a trash can since I felt sick. It was only my third case, and I hadn’t yet hardened my heart.

As I “saw” her murder, I was floating by the ceiling at the entrance of the living room. That in itself was odd, in that I hadn’t before realized that I could time travel in that way. I realized that he had known her for many years, and they had been connected and spoke on several occasions. I left the police station feeling terrible, more terrible than usual. A young woman, prime of her life, a teacher, friend, daughter. I sat in my car and said to myself, can’t you do more? Can’t you think of a name for the murderer, or exactly where he lived, when you know he lived close by?

That detective retired and either threw our tape away or took it home, then he died. The next detective on the case called me back in. I couldn’t remember much, and to start from the beginning was so hard for me. I felt worthless.

When I saw on television that he was captured I had a little party, alone at my little house on a hill. I had given him a nickname, but it wasn’t accurate. The report did say they knew each other, so that redeemed me.

I’m not a detective. I’m an add on. I’m not trained. I haven’t taken any classes in this area. I make mistakes. I’m sometimes a huge help, sometimes I’m not. I wish I were perfect but don’t we all? For a myriad of reasons, I have this ability. Some days I’d like it to swirl down the drain.

After fifteen years of murder work, at age 55, I did a little dance to the powers that gave me this gift, to take it away. I told the voice in my head, I’m tired, it’s time for someone else to take my place. The good news is that it’s gone. As Dusty Springfield sang, Wishin’ and Hopin’. I wished and hoped it away. 

First Family Reunion

A few months ago, my daughter, Layla, said, let’s have a family reunion in Vermont! I’ll get an AirBnB. She wanted her six-year-old son to enjoy some of the things she liked when I took her and my son, Gavin, to summer in Montpelier and stay with my sister and her family.

Back then, vacation with family was what I could afford, and my sister and her husband were generous beyond belief, with both their time and money. The kids searched the rivers, swam, went down mountain slides, saw movies, ate ice cream and lobster, took mountain hikes, and put on plays with their cousins. 

I wonder what we will do this time, since we are grown, and Mercer’s cousins are teenagers. What fun will they have with a six year old? Although when I was a kid, I loved going to Alabama and discovering a new cousin had been born, or one I had known all my life had turned into a different person. Sometimes they were short, then the next year, tall. One year they were friendly, the next, aloof.

Family connections have a strong pull on us. This trip, I will miss the people who have passed on. What a blast if I could conjure my grandparents, so they could meet their great grandkids. This year I will see my brother, which is unusual, and he is moving to Florida so it could be a last time. Of all my family, I think he looks most like me, so seeing him means an analysis. How much grey or black is left in his hair? Did his teeth revert to more crooked than mine? Does he sound the same? Of course, voices are one part of us that often doesn’t age. The timbre lowers, but the tone is recognizable.

This will be great fun, and I’m happy to be invited. To have my kids and grandson all in one house together is a true joy. I’m taking a keyboard so we can sing happy birthday for the three birthdays I missed in August.

I’ll look at all of their physical selves, and try to be intuitive, but it’s harder to read my family than it is strangers. Or maybe I just care more and want to do better. I sure am aware of the moments that I bug them though, so I’ll take some books so I can hide.  

Fear and Confidence

I walk daily with an old friend who feels like a new friend because I wasn’t close to her sixty years ago. She is fearful of some things, and that seems so odd to me. When I got the job as a flight attendant fifty years ago, I decided that in order to have the most possible fun with new experiences, I would conquer my fears.

I think our mothers plant our fears. I guess it could be our fathers, but I know more fearful women than I do fearful men. My mom wasn’t afraid of many things, and she used to tell me I could be the president if I wanted that job. But as a child, I was afraid of goblins, ghosts, and strange men who seemed to have a bad streak.

I do believe that my foresight helps me avoid many problems. I can sense whether people are bad or good. I like to play that game when I’m bored while waiting for a bus or plane. Which one of these people are the bad people? The only problem with that is, they stay on my mind as they board the plane, while I hope they won’t be seated next to me. 

On my last bus trip to New York City, I saw a man board with his wife. She seems nice, he seems sort of skeezy. An hour after we left Bethlehem, he moved to sit next to me. I looked at him oddly, and he said, my wife is too big. This seat gives me more room. Ok then, a penalty for my not having ice cream every time I want it. I thought about walking back to ask her what she thought about his comment, but decided not to stir the pot.

Next thing, he started to rub his phone on his crotch while stealing looks at me. Oh why had a worn a pretty dress on that bus instead of my usual travel clothes? Although that’s a bad idea, to think that anything I wore made a difference. He got up to go check on her, or to use the bathroom. I told the woman across the aisle that he was being inappropriate and that if he returned, I would move to sit with her. She warned me not to tell the bus driver, since he was driving, so I just sat. He returned, and I moved. He acted horrified and asked why. When I told him he had acted inappropriately, he yelled, you’re crazy. Yeah, crazy for not telling the bus driver.

None of this generated fear, just caution. Port Authority has more security officers than anywhere I’ve seen, so when I got off the bus, I told a circle of them what had happened, and that I would stand with them to be sure he wasn’t following me. I forgot about his wife tagging along. They made me feel safe again, and off I went into the crowds of New York City.

Fear cripples us. To me, it’s poison. I try to avoid it. That man had been sitting in the back of the bus before he moved next to me. No way I could have avoided him entirely. Bad things and bad people are everywhere. Keep your wits about you, follow your instincts, and report to the bus drivers and officers of the law.

Memories and Time Travel

So you want to time travel? It will be easy if you start with a memory. I like to do it in the dentist chair, when I wish to be far away from what is happening inside my mouth. I seem to be able to care more about sticking with the memory, and the distraction helps the time pass quickly.

When I was small, I had a lot of bad dreams. I would yell for my mother, and she would come and sit on the side of my bed. We had four bedrooms in the house, and my sister and brother had rooms across the hall. My room shared a wall with my parents. Mostly I hated that. I could hear them making grown-up love noises and felt grossed out, or I worried they would hear the small blue transistor radio that I played under my covers after lights out.

After my bad dream, my mother would tell me to think happy thoughts. She’d usually suggest that I think of a vacation that we took that I liked, which was all of them. Some nights I would fall back asleep with my mind on my fun Alabama cousins, who didn’t wear shoes, acted a little naughty, and laughed a lot. Sometimes I fell asleep as I rode my bicycle along the ocean boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey.

The hardest part for you to time travel is that you have to take all your brain cells, and put them in another location. You have to recognize how the fun spot smells, listen to the sounds, move your body in your mind's eye according to whether you are walking, riding a bike, or driving a bumper car. You have to actually be in another spot totally.

Once you can do that with a memory, you can start to do the same exercise when you want to see the future, or if you want to connect with someone who has passed on. I looked at recent pictures of the back of my head from my son’s wedding. With shock, I remembered my grandmother’s hair. I used to wonder why it was so frizzy. When I saw the pictures, I realized mine was the same frizzy only not dyed black. I stopped hating my old lady hair. My grandmother used to complain about hers, and I realized hers was also most likely inherited. Neither of us have control over that one. Suddenly I was with her, watching her get ready to go out and listening to her beautiful voice. She felt alive. 

Good luck with your time travel. It’s like flying in an airplane. In order to feel comfort, we have to let go of trying to control what is going on. Let another person manage that plane, just like when we were all young. I asked a 10-year-old piano student yesterday, where is your next trip? He vacations a lot. He shrugged. He knew they would go somewhere, since it’s summer, and he always had fun. 

Don’t get uptight when you time travel. Just try to float and have fun.

Secrets

Secrets, why do we keep them when they only involve ourselves? I realized this weekend that when I reveal my secrets on this forum, I’m embarrassed for days, but I get my highest open rate. So here is a secret story. 

It was early in my police detective work. A pal at work told me about a man who she said worked for the FBI. I met him in the north. He introduced me as a detective from Lebanon, and though that was accurate, I wasn’t a true police detective. It was late at night and the other cops looked up from their desks and computers, and then ignored me. 

Now girls, let me tell you, this man was gorgeous, with a perfect face and a small, strong body. First off, I knew he wasn’t FBI. Turned out he was a plant, and part of another agency, but I can’t tell you that secret part, meaning what he was spying on, but I can tell you it wasn’t a murder case. He was a sharp shooter and once called me from a stake-out. That was exciting. 

But let’s get back to my story. As we sat and then walked the town, I told him what I knew about his secret mission, and that my nickname for him was Robocop. He was sold after that, because when he doubled on weekends as a street cop, the kids called him Robocop. 

The man he was spying on was indicted later, a bad guy in the midst of politics and law enforcement, but at the time I worked with him, Robocop was a bit frustrated and sick of his assignment. I found it thrilling and a lovely change of pace from nice people getting murdered. 

We became close for a few days. I will never forget him. Soft-spoken with a hard body and a sweet soul. In the Vietnam War, he was a tunnel rat. Other cops told me that tunnel rats were crazy and brave. A specialized group of U.S. Army soldiers and combat engineers, along with some from other allied nations, tunnel rats ventured into the Viet Cong's vast underground tunnel systems during the Vietnam War. These soldiers were volunteers who were chosen for their small stature, agility, and mental toughness, as the tunnels were often extremely narrow, dark, and filled with booby traps. Other vets have told me that it was the scariest situation. The life expectancy of a tunnel rat in Vietnam was seven seconds.

I don’t know how to end this, since we lost contact. I just know that he was brave and fearless, and that he seemed to miss close contact. I always wonder why I didn’t ask how he kept secrets so easily.

Fostering and Facebook

I’m having a hard month that I wasn’t able to predict. A bad person took over my Facebook page and changed my password and the email in the middle of the night. Facebook didn’t care, until I asked forty friends to bombard them with “this page is a fraud” comments. Facebook shut my pages down, and I have no more access. But at least the bad person can’t continue to pretend to sell items and ask for a deposit so my friends lose money.

On the other hand, I’m having the time of my life. Most likely this is hardest thing I’ve ever done, which is to foster a 12 year old boy. I’m never bored, but he needs help with a myriad of issues. The love is boundless, but for the first week I wanted to cry every hour. I’m SO tired, but I’m better this week at expressing what I need, like to read and rest, instead of thinking of what he so direly needs every minute. I will never be able to catch up to his neglect.

My pal Leslie said, that must be hard intuitively, which is a sweet thing I had never thought about. All day long we connect intuitively with other people, and I know that some of you get worn out with people connections at work and in your social life.

I went to a little fair at the mall with my foster son. That was so hard. I’m a super smeller and the people hadn’t broken out their deodorant for summer. They wore strange costumes and had unusual, scary things for sale. My foster son asked 10,001 questions, and the vendors oozed kindness. Another huge kindness event was last week when he and I went birding with the Mt. Gretna Birding Club. We saw 43 types of birds, walked for three hours, trekked through swampland, and put binoculars to our faces, over and over. I explained how much I like nerds, and he asked 10,005 questions.

Whether you call it serendipity or synchronicity, people cross our paths and affect us. Sometimes for evil, but mostly for good. As the Wicked song goes, I have been changed for good.

Pets and Intuitive Connections

We might not have a favorite child, but most of us have had a favorite pet. Mine was an orange cat named Savvy. She would walk with me on a leash, or stay close by without one, and come when I made a certain sound, like a dog would. I’ve had a lot of cats, but she was the smartest, the sweetest, the easiest, and oh so pretty. I still see an orange cat and think it might be her.

For a brief time, I thought I might do work as a pet psychic. Well, I sort of do, in that I can see people’s pets, and know their physical weaknesses. I can’t hear them talking to me or communicating, so I decided to let that idea pass me by.

I like pets. I don’t have one because I’m old and I don’t want to die and have it go to the Humane Society and be put down. They are also a lot of work and I’m getting tired, and they cost a lot of money, and I’m getting tired.

When I decided to start the foster training, I thought I might save an animal instead. But frankly, I like people better than cats or dogs. I sure do understand the love though. I will always miss Savvy. 

My Magical Mystery Tour

In February, I travelled to Italy, Switzerland, and France. My travels to Europe are coming to a close, due to my advancing age and the cost, so this visit I thought a lot about why foreign travel makes my heart soar. I love change, so that’s a factor, but the magical, mystical explorations are my favorite.

The last time I had visited the Coliseum in Rome was fifty-two years ago. Memory is uneven. This time it seemed larger and scarier. Possibly because our guide said that ½ million people and 1 million animals died there in 26 years. My spidey sense heard their screams, and it chilled me to the bone.

The fountain statues in Rome speak to me. Walk a few blocks and I see another one. The human form in stone or marble thrills me. The Vatican came next. More Michaelangelo. I could have spent all day looking at his paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He painted from memory rather than forms or sketches. I free floated my brain to think about which one of the men he painted was his uncle, which one was his neighbor.

The statue of David, and other sculptures by Michaelangelo and others in the art museum, Gallery of the Academy of Florence. I swooned then I time travelled to the subject’s lives, to see what type of person they were, and how they sat still for so long to pose.

Gondoliers sang in the canals of Venice as they paddled me down stinky pathways of water. When I got off the boat, my body vibrated with happiness for twenty minutes. How strange that some people long ago decided to build a city on water. It’s fun to think about how people’s obsessions lead them.

In Switzerland, near Lucerne, I went in a tiny cable car, where I feel such fear that I thought my heart would pump out of my chest, to the top of Mt. Pilatus. At 7000 feet, I had a view of the top of the clouds, and on top of that, a line of snow-covered mountains in the Swiss Alps. I thought about explorers and mountain climbers, and, how I would both love and hate that job.

My hotel room in Paris overlooked the Eiffel Towel. I walked to its base many times in two days, and the romance of that city swept me away from myself and into the mysteries of the past.

The gardens of Versailles made me feel like I was a court princess, despite my abundance of warm clothes. I glided instead of walked. I heard the court’s laughter and felt their discontent.

Home now feels flat. Adventures will be small instead of huge. My focus will be on things that touch my life in small ways, but small can be exciting too.

Into the Ether

I read a super interesting book, Psychic Warrior, by David Morehouse. An ex-Army officer, Morehouse revealed his experiences working for the CIA as a psychic, and his book discusses his spiritual transformation that led him to expose the CIA's Stargate program. 

Before the program, he signed a Human Use Agreement, and then he was taught to transcend time and space. They said it would change his life and it seems to have done so.

What I found most interesting was that I was asked long ago by someone in law enforcement, if I would be interested in working on one of these programs. For many reasons, I said no. I prefer working alone, or with one other person, the military seems too confining for my personality, and I preferred to keep my abilities and way of working to myself.

I was told I would be working in a room, and would be led by coordinates, as David Morehouse and his colleagues were, to a place I needed to examine. It seemed a bit nebulous, and I preferred murder cases, especially local ones.

The best part of the book was when Morehouse gave a name to where he goes. He called it “the ether”. I don’t call it anything other than a bit of a trance.

One thing Morehouse and I have in common is nightmares. They are what motivated me to do this work. With Morehouse, his upsetting dreams began after he was wounded by a stray machine gun bullet and had glimpses into another world. After he told military authorities, they recruited him into Stargate, a group of top-secret psychic spies backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Another thing Morehouse and I had in common, is that it was hard to explain to his kids. I never knew how much or how little info to give my children. I didn’t want them to worry, and I didn’t want them to go into strange worlds or reasoning.

I did what he calls, open search, and he claims that means to invite the signal line to take you wherever there’s something to be learned. Remote viewing is more of what they explained I would be doing when they offered it to me. Remote viewers are told where to go and what to look for, and have a handler at their side or nearby. That explains why, when working on a case, I liked doing so in the spot where the detectives worked. That cop shop, as I called it, helped me feel safer.

Morehouse said that many others worked on Stargate, and sometimes two people were told to go to the same spot, on the same mission, and then the higher ups would analyze the data and compare. I guess that’s like listening to information from other psychics besides me. His specific mission was called Sun Streak, and included classified documents that he couldn’t take home. I never took any evidence home.

When the US started their program, the Soviets had been doing it for years. Law enforcement had made me aware of that many years ago.

When Morehouse began to talk about his work he was blacklisted. My work as a psychic has brought hassles for me. I don’t want to complain, but it used to be frequent that I had arguments when people who told me I was doing the Devil’s work.

I do believe my work as a psychic has been somewhat detrimental to my work as a teacher. Several schools have wanted me to stop working there, even though I tried to keep it a secret and didn’t talk about my abilities with students or parents. It’s a fine line between doing good work, the right thing, and other people’s beliefs that I might be on the wrong side. 

Fear

People ask me, about my psychic ability, aren’t you afraid? I wonder, do they think they would be afraid to know what is going to happen? Or do they think that knowledge in advance is to be feared? I see it more as a preparation, a way to not be afraid, since I expected a result.

My first bike was an open ride into the world. Before that, I was afraid of my closet, the space under my bed, and basically the whole wide world. As I rode four blocks to my elementary school to peer in the windows on the weekends, I realized I loved adventures. To love an adventure meant I had destroyed fear. I soon saw that cars and people inside who ignored me were the biggest menace to what might happen to me. Yet I continued to have as many adventures as I could fit into my small life.

My huge college, Penn State, wasn’t scary. Just big and beautiful, with choices beyond measure. Sports, music, friends, food, all the choices were mine alone. No longer did my mom try to pick my friends for their social status. I could use my intuition to pick the good ones, the stimulating ones, regardless of their parent’s status. 

In college, I rode my fat-wheeled bike out into the country to escape the chaos of all those people at Penn State. Crowds meant I could “see” too much, people’s past mistakes, and negative thoughts. I still hate crowds, with my ability to see crimes committed and blunders covered up. 

If a person presses me more than once with the question, aren’t you afraid? I answer, I think you should be the one who is afraid. I have an ability that makes me safer. 

When we remember the past, it’s a fuzzy, grey sort of thought. That’s how I see other people’s past mistakes. That isn’t who they are now, although that is another layer I can wade through if I need to think about whether they can be trusted.

We all worry about the future, about what could happen. I see it in advance sometimes, but I’m not afraid. Long, long ago I conquered my fears, as I stepped onto a United Air Lines plane as a stewardess in 1973. Full gusto, I said to myself. Don’t let fear get in the way. Do it and think positively. Try it all, say yes. Fear is a roadblock, move beyond it.

 

Recipient of a Grudge

An old high school writer pal said I was her nemesis and wrote a book where I had a starring role. When I talked about her lies to another friend she said, I only wish someone would write a book about me. But I felt stunned and bewildered. 

I actually had to look up the word nemesis in my 2076 page Webster dictionary. It’s an opponent or rival whom a person cannot best. Oh my sorrow almost overwhelmed me. To think that I play a role so predominantly in her world could be thought of as good, but it seemed quite pitiful. 

I don’t know how to make her value her own self more. Intuitively, I know she is coming from a place of inferiority, but when we were close, I tried to build her up. When she wanted to play compare games, I’d tell her that her legs or hair were the most beautiful. I still try to send Facebook positivity her way when she posts, and on the few occasions that I see her, I ask important questions about her life and interests. 

I know that all of you have been recipients of grudges, and most were undeserved. We have to pat ourselves on the back and say, you’re doing a great job. Don’t let someone else’s negativity stand in your way. Be creative and interesting, achieve all that you can. The race is you against your own self, not a race against another. Change the Be Our Guest lyrics from Beauty and the Beast to your own lyrics- Be Your Best, be your best, put your service to the test. And the finale: Come on and lift your glass, you’ve won your own free pass (life is so unnerving). 

Jay Shetty in his book, Think Like a Monk, suggests transformative forgiveness. He says negativity arises from fear, and the longer we hold onto fear, the more it ferments until it eventually becomes toxic.

Reincarnation

I am not even close to being an expert on reincarnation. When people tell me their stories and remember a past life, I nod and wish I were more fluent in this. I have always remembered only one thing, I drowned in a past life. The image is of me swimming in very deep water, and I had a bathing suit on and I had very long black hair.

Since my hair has never grown long and takes forever to grow an inch, I figured from the dark hair and my adroit figure that it must have happened in my 30s. The vision seemed vivid for so long, that I avoided deep water from age eighteen to my forties. I still don’t think I’d swim out deep into the ocean.

The whole thought of this phenomenon makes me feel creepy. Clients on my ghost tours ask me if I’m frightened by the ghosts I see. No, I tell them, I’ve always seen them, so they don’t seem unusual to me. Beside, they aren’t here to disturb me.

Why are they here? I think disgruntled ghosts are people who have unfinished business. Why are the good ghosts here? I imagine they are having fun, or got stuck in this dimension somehow.

I wish I could remember more past lives. I wonder if my déjà vu is related to a past life. Maybe then I was in the same spot as I am in this lifetime.

Hinduism and Buddhism believe in reincarnation. That will be my next research project, to find out what’s going on through the eyes of a religion. One quarter of adults and 18% of Americans believe in reincarnation. I definitely need to know more. Here’s a book suggestion: In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger. 

How Long Have You Been Doing This?

At holistic fairs, the question I get most often is, How long have you been doing this?

When I was thirty, I started to research tarot and anything paranormal. Libraries were my source, and the librarians stared at me oddly when I asked for help. I lived in Bloomsburg, PA at the time, and the locals told me there was a witch girl who walked through town often and hung out at the roller rink. 

I found her walking by my apartment most days, and tried to lure her in, to ask what she knew. She had a great sense of reserve, and told me the people in the town made fun of her. That wasn’t my intention, but she also said she didn’t have any real powers. She discussed her “crazy mother” and her own bouts of mental illness. The two of us had fun roller skating, but people in the town thought I should stay away from her. To me, she seemed harmless. 

A few years later, I moved back to my hometown, Lebanon, where it was easier to find work than it was in Bloomsburg, where I knew few people. I had missed my mom’s presence and support, and this area had more libraries for my research and more radio stations for me to find work. 

I visited a few local psychics who were scam women, and not at all helpful in my quest to be a good psychic. I read books, took notes, and used libraries in Cumberland and Dauphin counties. 

At age forty, in 1991, I began my pro bono work with police. Detectives used to ask, don’t you need anything? What do you use? By then I had spent many years learning the tarot, but it wasn’t helpful or needed in my murder work. Information came to me as I sat at my computer, and I would type info from home. It was unpleasant work, and I truly hated seeing murder scene pictures. 

At age fifty-five, I grew weary of what others called the dark side of life. I only worked on cases where good people were hurt, and that made me almost too sad for words. I decided then, that I was finally well-versed enough to start to do readings for pay. I got booths at holistic fairs far enough out of town that I wouldn’t be labelled as crazy. I did all I could not to be a charlatan. Honesty came first. It’s still hard to tell people difficult news. I don’t think my music education nor my multi media specialization for my masters helped me succeed in this field.

I met Andy Pushnik, who was a great reader but didn’t share much with me. He gave me his worn deck of cards and clothes from his dead mom, but I truly wanted a mentor. He worked through his substance abuse problems, and in time, I decided if he could work in the field, so could I. So here I am, with a business that flourishes and a name that garners respect. It’s what we all wish for, to keep our path straight and keep a clear conscience. 

It's easier to be an old lady psychic than a young one. I get more automatic respect. Just like it’s easier to be an old music teacher. None of the mothers care anymore when their husbands bring the kids. Jealousy is not pleasant, so it’s a relief to be past that stage. When old guys flirt with me in front of their wives, the wives usually say, you can have him if you want him!

Nowadays, I continue to research anything paranormal and try to find my own path. My latest is palms, an ancient form that many have moved away from. As teenagers, my friends and I would stare at our palms and try to see the future. Now I can actually make sense of it through this almost lost art.