memories
Nothing Tastes Sweeter Than Gratitude
During the holidays, most homes and businesses have their festive lights and decorations up. One of the parking lots in my neighborhood is currently featuring a flamboyant set of beautiful red lights that really struck me as I was driving by the other day. In fact, it caused a strong emotional reaction within me.
Now, what might be so profound or special about a display of red Christmas lights, you may wonder. It is, after all, a typical holiday decoration seen everywhere this time of year. So, what’s the big deal? Well, those lights set me off so much because it brought back precious memories of my childhood.
I grew up in a very small town in New Brunswick, Canada. My family struggled and we were very poor. However, that did not prevent my parents from ensuring that we still enjoyed a few rare luxuries and treats on special occasions.
The most memorable of these were the “barley toys,” as we used to call them. Every Christmas, it was the tradition for each of us to receive a packet of barley toys. Now, this has nothing to do with actual toys. Instead, a barley toy is a kind of clear sugar lollipop or sucker shaped like a toy. These translucent, glass-like candies traditionally come in whimsical shapes, including various animals, as well as ships, trains, cars and, of course, Santa Clause.
According to the Startup Candy Factory in Provo, Utah, one of the earliest clear toy candy makers in the United States, German immigrants brought this holiday tradition to America and original recipes for it can be traced back to the 1700s. It was originally called “barley candy,” because cane sugar was very scarce at the time, so early candy makers used the cheaper and more readily available barley sugar.
Are You A Spiritual Conduit?
Imagine coming into a room and strangers start confessing their past discretions, talking about being molested, admitting to addictions they’ve never told another living soul about, all without even telling you their name. Imagine hearing someone confess to a crime, or admit that they think their sister’s boyfriend was the one to kill her. This is what the spiritual conduit experiences every day.
Conduits are very rare. It is a life of sacrifice. There is no long line on the other side for souls waiting to volunteer as a conduit. It is hard earned. It is a painful, yet rewarding life path, but the rewards only come in the afterlife. The conduit is not only psychic, so they can see the ugliest things one can see in souls, but it is also a very isolated existence.
What is a conduit? A conduit is a spiritual muse. Just the presence of a conduit in the room forces everyone’s issues to come up. A conduit’s energy brings out both the light and the dark in the people who are in their presence. The ‘student’ sees the best qualities in themselves; that which has been hidden, denied or suppressed. They also see their own childhood issues, abuse, addictions, impurities, disorders and dysfunctions.
Unfortunately, for the conduit, the anger and pain from all of the past that has been denied and supressed is often projected onto them as they become the authority figure, or the maternal and paternal figures who these issues originally stemmed from. The conduit is often the only one in the room, but there is also the ‘don’t kill the messenger’ force present in these moments.
Forgive, But Never Forget!
I’ve been reflecting on the notion of ‘forgive and forget’ in this season of thanksgiving, joy, generosity, and gratitude. Is it indeed necessary for us to both forgive and forget when others wrong us? Does that not make is doormats or losers? Consulting spirit on this matter, I found that the concept of ‘forgetting’ actually implies something quite different to our typical understanding of it.
True forgiveness is to ‘turn the other cheek’ when we are wronged. It is an essential aspect of our spiritual growth and soul evolution. When we practice forgiveness, we increase dharma, which is essentially ‘cosmic law and order’ and therefore ‘good karma.’ If we have good dharma, we begin to receive more gifts and blessings from the Universe, and spontaneous kindness and generosity from others. We also become more approachable because our ‘gratitude glass’ is always more than half full with spiritual champagne!
Spiritual practice and energetic self-care are the optimal ways to practice and strengthen our forgiveness. Through daily prayer, meditation, candle work, or journaling, supplemented by anointing ourselves with healing essential oils, for example, or taking an Epsom salt bath, we can release all resentment, anger and bitterness that block our energy flow and holds us back.
The other person does not need to know that we’ve forgiven them. It is of course even better if we tell them, but their participation or approval is not necessary. Forgiveness is a private matter and a gift we give to ourselves.
Forgetting harms and hurts is however an entirely different matter. If we forget too easily, we also tend to stop reflecting gratefully on our joys and blessings. Bad things happening to good people increases our appreciation and gratitude for the good things in our lives.
Sound Vibration Heals Our Brain Chemistry
Thoughts have metaphysical power. Words, speech, singing and sound also have power. Everything we say, sing and chant has vibrational sound frequencies that changes the chemistry of our brain and the physiology of our body.
A positive sound vibration changes the brain to a calm, compassionate, highly intuitive state. Think of a baby laughing and how it brings joy to everyone who hears it.
A negative sound vibration abruptly shocks and damages the nervous system. Think of someone scratching the chalk board or yelling racist epithets, and how both make you nervous and angry.
We can actually improve our health with positive vibrations in the form of mantras. A mantra is a set of words, with a positive meaning that also has a positive vibration. When repeated over and over, this vibration permeates every cell of the body, igniting, healing and repairing these cells. It moves through every muscle, bone and organ.
This process changes the entire energy field, aura, and expands it. Done with enough practice and an open heart and mind it can increase our light to the point where we can heal ourselves or help others to heal.
Have you ever walked into a silent room and felt that there had been a conflict between the people who have been there, before you arrived? That vibration, positive or negative, leaves an energetic residue and is absorbed by everyone entering into it, unless that person has increased their vibration to the point where they become psychically impervious to other’s negative energies.
Children Who Remember Past Lives
Have you ever wondered where birthmarks come from? Or, if there is any link between birth defects and reincarnation? I’m not referring to the marks that are hereditary. I’m referring to those brown or red spots, also known as ‘strawberries’ or ‘angel kisses.’ These marks typically appear at birth. Some are located between the eyes, or on the neck, stomach or lower back, essentially anywhere.
And what about birth defects, developmental abnormalities, and even allergies, such as asthma? Or phobias that are inexplicably present in small children, such as fear of fire or heights, when these children have not experienced any trauma associated with these things. Could these marks and phobias be evidence of trauma from a past life? Some occult and paranormal experts believe this just may be the case.
In parts of Asia, the tradition is routinely practice that when a person dies, a relative will mark the body with soot, with the hopes that the person will be reborn into the same family. The mark is said to become a birthmark in which the family members can identify the deceased. It is considered proof of an old soul being reborn. I can’t imagine this tradition lasting from generation to generation, if there wasn’t some real evidence to justify its validity.
I know from firsthand experience with my daughter that there is definitely something to it – at the very least something to consider. From a very young age, around 15 to 18 months, my daughter became terrified of the police. If we were outside playing in the yard, or in the pool, and a police car drove by, my daughter would begin to cry, shake hysterically and insist on going in the house. There she would remain for the rest of the day. She was also able to clearly differentiate between the police helicopter patrolling our neighborhood and other helicopters. She would panic when the police helicopters were flying overhead.
The Good Old Days Of Tribal Service
Someone once asked me the question: why do you do what you do? Most psychics might say that they do it because they love helping people. I gave it careful some thought and realized my answer would be the same, but under different terms. That isn’t to say that I don’t love helping others, but there would be different boundaries, if I was free to choose.
I work in the New Age ways, as well as in the indigenous traditions, and I pride myself on the knowledge I have gained in order to truly blend the East with the West. If I had a choice, I would work in the indigenous tradition of my ancestors, especially regarding how one is remunerated for your service.
In the indigenous way, each village had a spiritual person that they called by various names, including Medicine Man, Shaman, Healer, Guru, Oracle, Soothsayer. It was the way in those cultures to take care of the spiritual leaders of the tribe, in terms of their material needs. They shared equally whatever they had with their spiritual leader.
As a result, the spiritual leader didn’t have to focus any of his time on meeting his material needs, such as keeping a roof over his head, or thinking in terms of where his next meal would come from. Instead, he could devote all of his time and energy to spiritual matters.
His payment for his gifts didn’t include whatever the tribe used for money or barter, or if it did, it was not thought of in the same context. In other words, anyone in his tribe could come to him at anytime, with any kind of spiritual issue, and he could address it however he deemed necessary, according to his own sense of direction and spirit guidance. He didn’t have to consider time, energy, and money. He didn’t have to require payment in terms of the time he spent or what was required, because he was so esteemed by his people that they took care of his worldly needs, so he could devote himself to their spiritual needs completely. What a concept! Right?
Honor Your Past Life Memories
Sometimes we experience unusual memories accompanied by intense emotions, when nothing unusual has happened to trigger it and there is no apparent reason for us to feel this way. These memory flashbacks may be due to past life experiences that had a profound impact on our soul evolution.
Past life memories tend to come out of nowhere. For example, I love traditional parades, but whenever the marching band passes by I always get the shakes and even begin to cry.
I am also deathly afraid of covered bridges, to the point that feel traumatized whenever I must cross one. I also have a claustrophobic phobia to be trapped in confined spaces, or climbing up to a high place and being unable to come down. And last but not least being tickled freaks me out completely!
I believe these fears are all due to energy imprints from traumatic previous life experiences. As constantly evolving souls we all journey through many lifetimes on the path to spiritual transcendence. It’s not simple or easy to shape a fully enlightened spiritual being.
So, why do we sometimes ‘remember’ these former traumas and why do we let it affect our current life? There is always a reason we carry things over from lifetime to lifetime. Some are things we still need to heal or overcome, while others are protective warnings of past life dangers that are meant to shield us from repeating the same mistakes.
In my work as a professional psychic and healer, I have also found that many people carry a fear of what caused their deaths in previous lives.
Sometimes these cellular memories from former incarnations are also beneficial and positive, even amazing. For example, I have heard of people who mysteriously just know how to sew, speak a foreign language, or handle a gun with confidence. Some people are inexplicably gifted to play musical instruments with no training, or paint, or dance. Some are naturally born healers or inventors with no formal education. Their abilities and skills just seem to come naturally.
