inner child
A Healing Spirit Visitation And The Haunted Toy
A few months ago, my best friend, whom I’ve known since I was five, had her mother pass away. Shortly after that, I woke up in the middle of the night because my son’s educational toy was spontaneously activated and said: “Learn.”
I then instantly felt my friend’s mother’s presence. She was visiting me to apologize to me for something that happened when I was a little girl. It was a deep wound for me at the time, but I rarely thought about it since, and did not harbor any ill will because of it.
When I was 11 years old, I had told my best friend that I had “seen my goddess.” I did not know about spirit guides and had not yet been exposed to any related spiritual philosophies or belief systems. However, I was already interacting with my spirit guide back then, whom I called ‘my goddess.’ Today, I know her as Lily.
I also told my friend that my goddess had said that she was going to give me gift. Later that day, in the cow field that I had to cross to get to school every morning, I found a silver ring.
My friend knew that we were not wealthy, so there was no way I could have bought the ring with my own money. It clearly had been found. It was too much of a coincidence for my friend to not link it to me saying my goddess was giving me a gift.
Unfortunately, these events really scared my friend. She told her parents. That night, my friend’s father, who was a rather intimidating man, came to my house and yelled at me in front of my mom. My mother was confused, since she did not know what had happened earlier that day.
My friend’s parents never got over it. They assumed I was lying and telling stories that scared their daughter. They treated me quite badly after that. This is too often the lot of many psychic children. We are frequently accused of lying or exaggerating, among other things.
We Are All Somebody’s Somebody
This is a story about a child who grew up thinking one way, but in time discovered that things are not always as they seem. How we choose to think, or see, or feel about life is how we will live it.
His journey started in the fall of 1961. At birth he appeared to be perfectly ‘normal,’ except that he was underweight and arrived a little early. It was later to be discovered that he had sight in only one eye and did not respond to sound in his left ear. This caused him to also experience difficulties later in learning how to talk. He also had some health issues with the functioning of his heart.
He was fortunate to grow up with a loving family, who understood early on that he was different, but for the most part they didn’t treat him any differently. With the help of speech therapy, hearing aids and glasses, he learned to manage and adapt, but there was a burning anger and frustration inside of him as he grew older.
In time, he increasingly realized how different he was to the other kids, to the extent that it made going to school and interacting with others very frustrating.
Then something wonderful happened. His father, who had been an Eagle scout in his youth, also got him involved with scouting. Suddenly, his world opened up. Although as a family they often went camping and taking canoe trips, this was different, because he was spending time with other boys his age.
Soon, he became involved as a manager of the football team, and later as an athletic trainer. He had found his role and calling, figuring he can’t play himself, but he can certainly help others play! He had finally found something he was really good at, and by the time he was a senior in high school his reputation was such that he was recruited to be a student trainer for All-state Boys Basketball.
Later he attended college on a scholarship as a student trainer and participated in several championship teams, including as the head student trainer for the co-ed training room. College, however, not only afforded him his dream career, but it also offered him the opportunity to help those kids who weren’t playing on the A-teams. He could teach them how to participate in their own way, and still succeed. After graduating he became a certified athletic trainer.
My Great Grandmother’s Mysterious ‘Sugar Cookies’
My great grandmother made incredible cookies. She called them “sugar cookies,” but perhaps a more appropriate name for them might have been mysterious mystical magic cookies! Everyone loved them – youngsters like myself, as well as our family’s elders, and every age in-between.
Those cookies still bring back so many wonderful memories. They had a special aroma of freshly-baked delight that wafted all the way outside her kitchen window and down the lane beside her charming little home, where she lived with my great grandfather. As a child I couldn’t wait to get to their house, so that I could partake of those delectable sweet treats.
They were round, but not perfectly round. They had that authentic homemade look, which made them even more exquisite to my childlike enthusiasm. And, there was a rather unique spiciness among the ingredients; it was a spice that I had never tasted before in anything else. Oh, my! I especially loved the barely charred edges they usually had, as a result of leaving them in the oven a bit longer than necessary. Those crisp little edges made them all the tastier to me.
I remember sitting at her kitchen table, watching her scoop up the ingredients, one by one, and adding them to her mixing bowl. I didn’t know how much of each ingredient she was using, because she never used a measuring cup. She just knew how much to add of everything. I believe this style of instinctively cooking from scratch is practically becoming a lost art, with all the digital recipes and modern utensils we use nowadays to cook even the simplest of things. And perhaps some of the true character and originality has also been lost in many of our ancestors’ recipes.
Let’s Make The Most Of This Gift Of Time
There is a cheesy saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It may be somewhat cheesy, but it is a brilliant metaphor. You still have those lemons. They are still terribly sour and inedible. But now you’ve added your own sweetness to them.
In recent months we have all suddenly been presented with a sometimes overwhelming new paradigm. Many of us are spending more time at home. Before the pandemic, many of us often wondered where our time went? If we only had more time!
This is especially true for those of us with young children. I have often said I feel like I only have 10-hour-days to fit everything into, including sleep, since my children were born.
It’s interesting to talk to my clients who are currently still going in to work, and often stressed for time, as compared to those clients who are fortunate to work from home, or have a reduced work schedule, or are currently unemployed. They are like parallel universes.
If you currently have the gift of time on your hands, make good use of it. It will lessen your depression and anxiety, and it will help you to think of this unusual time in our lives, which is only temporary, with more fondness and sentimentality. With the internet, so many options are open to us, and the possibilities are endless. Before all of this, I even learned how to crochet and knit online! I am now a very proud intermediate crocheter… and novice knitter.
Spiritual Attachment And Detachment
The physical world is not the only realm in which some of us struggle with issues of detachment (alienation), or attachment (codependency). The same holds true in the spirit realms.
If we experience spiritual attachment, this usually happens as a result of an addictive personality. In life, one could be addicted to unhealthy relationships, various substances, shopping, food, and so on. The driving force behind all of these is basically the same – the attempt to fill a perceived void with a substitute.
This inclination can then lead to the presence of negative spirit attachments with addictive energies. Perhaps the spirit entity had the same kind of addiction when it was in physical form, and still needs to experience that ‘high.’
When this happens, the victim in the physical world, to whom the spirit entity has attached itself, may become more stubborn and in denial over the need to change their habits. Many friends and family members who have had to deal with addicts, will tell you that addiction changed their loved one’s personality. From a spiritual perspective this is very true.
Spiritual detachment, on the other hand, happens when someone is the victim of abuse or trauma. A part of themselves ‘detaches’ or becomes distant from their core self, which may unintentionally invite a more powerful spirit presence to enter, to ‘protect’ or ‘guide’ the victim. Aristotle’s phrase ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ comes to mind. It means every space or void in nature always needs to be filled with something. The same holds true in the spirit realm.
A Time Of Transition With Venus Retrograde
Venus is the goddess of love, and in Astrology the planet Venus is thought to represent what we love, value and the pleasure we take in life. The zodiac sign that Venus is in at the moment of our birth, can give us clues as to how we approach relationships, as well as what gives us joy in life. In the Shamanic Astrology tradition, the natal Venus is considered to be our emerging feminine expression.
The planet Venus rotates around the Earth in an 18-month cycle. The cycle begins when it appears as the ‘morning star’ on the eastern horizon, best seen in the early morning sky. It then begins a journey around the Earth, disappearing behind the Sun for two to three months, before reappearing as the ‘evening star’ on the western horizon. As it nears the end of the cycle, Venus goes retrograde, before disappearing again from the sky, and then re-emerging once again in the early morning sky as a goddess transformed for another cycle.
This annual cycle of Venus represents the personal growth, transformation, death and rebirth that affects us all collectively. There is also a complete eight year cycle for each individual, as Venus reaches the same point in the sky, where it was at our time of birth, once every eight years. This is known as the Venus Return and is the starting point or rebirth of an individual’s eight year cycle. Often, around these 8-year time-frames, for example at age 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, and so on, there are significant life events that have more far reaching effects for us personally.
The Rosary Reflections Of A Spiritualist
Some of us are merely going through the motions every day, doing what we think others expect of us, doing the ‘should’ we put on ourselves. Living life by rote. I equate this to saying prayer beads. It becomes almost an unconscious act. So, when something unexpected happens, like the coronavirus pandemic, and we are forced to slow down, or even come to a complete halt, we are suddenly confronted with our own truths.
For some of us, the only things that then come to mind are all the things that we perceive we have done ‘wrong’ in the past. We feel guilt over all the people we have disappointed or hurt. We mourn the relationships that did not go the distance. We obsess over the skeletons in our own personal closet.
When we get into this mindset of shame and regret, it affects our immune system and our well-being. The ‘poor me, bad me, angry me’ turns into a very ‘toxic me.’ When the world seems to be falling apart, the mind does a life review. We let the fear and regret creep in. What if there really is an afterlife, even if you have always said, “I don’t believe in heaven and hell.” The ‘what if’s’ in life can really do a number on us. When faced with uncertain times it is only natural to think about our own mortality, and our failures and past mistakes.
One thing I find that really helps, is to reflect on the good memories. Let the unpleasant ones come and go, and not reside in your mind. Thoughts are such powerful things, especially when you are still reflecting on things at 3am in the morning, while you should be sleeping. These worries and bad memories are usually things we can’t do anything about, even if we desperately want to.
When things seem out of control, flip the switch. Reflect instead on all the things you have accomplished. Think about things in your life that have brought you great joy. Times that even one person said good job. People that have said “I hear you,” and “you matter to me.”
