212° - The Extra Degree

My brother Mike sent us this video. Awesome stuff. You can visit the website at www.simpletruths.com

Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations

One of the things I enjoy doing is watching television. I watched a show this evening called, “Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations” It was on the Travel Channel and this particular episode had Anthony in China. It’s like he’s a sightseer, but he really focuses in on the food. I just loved it. I came into the show just as he was in Shanghai. He traveled farther into China until he ended up in Shangri-La. If you click on this link you'll see still photos from the show. Just terrific. This is the way a country should be visited, by seeing the everyday people and what they eat. By listening to them about what excites them. These aren't 5 star restaurants. These are real people. It's the part I love about traveling.

In reading more about him on the information available at the Travel Channel website I read that he was a chef for 28 years. He is no longer working as a chef, but according to the video he was in he said he figured after having put in his time for that long he deserved the title. He also said he had been described as a bad boy. He demurred saying he was no longer a boy, but went on to say that French chefs, being in the business of pleasure, were almost honor bound to be bad boys. Right. With those words the guy is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I really liked this show.

Straight Laced Psychic

Last night we were watching a show on television about folks who were investigating haunted places. It was on the Biography channel and called Dead Famous – Ghostly Encounters. In this episode they went looking for Lucille Ball. There have evidently been a number of sitings of Lucy since she passed on and off to Stage 2, The Queen Mary and the Hotel Del Coronado we went.

On the team is a sensitive and a skeptic. Nicely balanced and in this particular show the skeptic got it with both barrels. Whether it was Lucy or somebody else’s spirit I don’t know. I think Lucy was more than likely in there some place since they were looking for her, however, my own personal opinion is that there were a bunch of lookie-loo spirits who were attracted to the ghost hunters.

At the end of the show they did a séance and the sensitive went into full blown unconscious channeling mode. He twitched. He flayed himself out all over the table. He flung his head back. It was a show. I looked over at DeeDude and said, “This is why I never wanted to do unconscious channeling. I was afraid of making a spectacle of myself.” I said, “I have come close, but only if I have 3 drinks under my belt.” It has to do with relaxing and surrendering your space for awhile. I’ve just never been real comfortable doing that. Just call me a psychic with a stick up my ass. Think of your old 5th grade teacher. That’s me.

On the flip side there’s no show to what a conscious channel does. It’s blah. How can you tell they’re doing anything other than talking to themselves? Well, with me the guides do speak in a different voice. It’s a sort of 18th century or older voice. The words they choose are usually different than the ones I speak. I sometimes think it’s a voice of a European dude. A male voice. It’s deeper than my own and gravelly at times. But, that’s my style, I guess.

Wanting as far as flamboyancy goes. Jane used to give it up and channel Seth from the unconscious mode. I’ve just either not progressed that far or will never go that far. I don’t know. I can remember twirling around my kitchen once a long time ago channeling Tupac, gyrating and with a brother’s rapping voice. The lady I was channeling for just about wet her pants she was so thrilled. But, I guess that’s the extent of it.

Which all leads me to the dream I had this morning right before I woke up. I’m on the telephone talking to a man and a woman who want me to find their cat. I’m thinking I can’t do that. I don’t do that. I’m hopeless as a psychic to find this animal. But, somebody I was with urged me to try anyway. Somebody says, “Feng Shui” and I put the telephone to my ear. I begin hearing music and a white ring forms at the edge of my vision and narrows to a point in front of me. A whole bunch of them one after the other after the other. And, then I fall down to the floor (spectacle, folks) and begin writhing and singing with the music that I’m hearing over the phone. And, I think that maybe I can psychically find this missing cat.

DeeDude

What I'm Reading

Usually I don’t make too many comments about a book that I’m reading until I’m done with it and will pen my review for my I Read Books Blog. However, I’m making an exception for, "Lisey's Story"by Stephen King. Yummy. Under the Yum Yum tree.

This is exactly what I would expect to see from Stephen King. It’s not like it’s the same old, same old story I’ve heard before, but more that I expect to see primo, 100% quality writing and a look into his own writing, his own life at the same time. They say that stories, in the beginning of a writer’s career are mainly autobiographical implying as you age into your writing life you’re not going to be drawing upon your own life at the same time, but I think that’s a crock.

I can imagine how after his own bout with being flung almost 20 feet into the air by a distracted (is saying it really diplomatically) driver and the ensuing fight for his life how that experience is now translated into, “Lisey’s Story”. I can see how much of what happens with Lisey could very well be what Stephen’s own wife Tabitha must have experienced during that time. I’ve read what Stephen King said in, “On Writing” to know that going to the pool to drink, where Scott Landon, Lisey’s husband comes up with his stories is so eerily similar to what King himself describes as going out into the desert to excavate for the stories that he writes. So, I can see what I feel are the personal touches in a story. Sort of a joke, a gem for people to find. Sort of like when Stephen King does a movie and makes one of those little cameo appearances in the beginning, much like Alfred Hitchock used to do in his movies.

The other thing I expect to see from Stephen King is the really fast parts of horror. I don’t like them. I sometimes have to stop when I get to those parts, but I pick up and push through them doggedly, knowing the good guys are going to be brave and that I will not be disappointed. I know that the end will be good, that the bad guys will fail and the good guys will win. That’s just how his books always go. I know that the good guys will get help to get them out of the horror, so I push on with that hope in sight.

I’m almost done with this book…maybe another three quarters of an inch left to go. Maybe later on today or tomorrow I’ll be writing my review. But, I just had to say something before that. This is the writer who spurred me on both as a psychic and as a writer. We have our heroes in life and one of mine is Stephen King.

Master Cook Recipes

I’ve got a MasterCook Recipe Program. Mine is version 9.0. I purchased it from ValueSoft for $20. I just love this program. It's been around for years and years and the most wonderful thing about it is that you go online and download collections of recipes folks have put together. For Free. Sometimes they ask for donations, but for the most part it is just sharing their favorite recipes. Imagine, 1,000 chicken recipes. Or, a recipe swap some group did. Or real chef collections, like Alton Brown or Back of the Box recipes. I don't know how many collections I've downloaded, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out it was more than 50. Hey, I just looked...phhhht...it's 104 cookbook collections I've downloaded. That's more than 50 for a certainty. I love this program so much I created a page of links for it at my other website.

Lovely search where if you've only got blueberries and a box of cake mix, what could you do?

BlueBerry Dump Cake (From: Favorite Recipes from Quilters)

2 pt Blueberries,fresh
3/4 c Sugar
1 White cake mix (we used yellow)
1 c Nuts, chopped
8 tb Margarine (we used butter), melted

Pour berries into 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle sugar, dry cake mix and nuts over berries. Pour melted margarine over entire mixture. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

Deedude liked this one. It got better as the days went by. We stored what we had not eaten in the fridge. Sort of like a super-charged Pop Tart.

Doodling

One of the things I just cannot seem to do in recent days is to figure out what I’d like to recommend for my newsletter’s August good thing to do. These are my recommend activities for movies, books and stuff to do for the last 7 months.

July – Five People You Meet in Heaven
June – Finding the Deep River Within
May - Pretending
April – Let Spirit Flow
March – Calm Down a Bit
February – Cleaning Up
January – Writing

I thought I’d put smiling in there somewhere. When did I say smiling? Oh, wonderful. Doodling! Yes, that is perfect. Thank you. Okay, now what should I say? Dear, we helped you to an idea. You can run with it.

Okay. Doodling. Doodling is good for passing the time while you’re on the phone on hold for somebody. That’s about the extent of my doodling. Oh, right, sometimes I doodle while I’m talking to somebody, but mostly, I think I pay attention to the conversation, so doodling on hold.
Except, that’s just doodling. What good is it? I guess that could be the snag. Other people might think like I do and figure what good is doodling? Well, I guess I could ask what it is. The mind is engaged while seemingly at rest. It’s sort of like twiddling your thumbs then. And, everybody maybe has the same sort of doodle that they do mostly. Like when I was a teenager I’d do whirls and hooks and such.



And, last night I did do some doodling while we were watching one of those forensic evidence cop shows on television.

So, that’s another place to do some doodling.

Could you do doodling deliberately maybe with some sort of purpose in mind?

Purposeful Doodling. I have to go to work right now, but I’ll think about it tonight. Now, that I’ve got something to think about.

Honey Do List

I’m making a Honey Do List for DeeDude. The most important thing I can think of is to get the DSL line working again. We have cable with Comcast now and it is so much faster than our old DSL connection ever was. However, when we left AT&T to go to Comcast we kept the old account because that represented years and years of email address use. To change that was just too much to think of. So, we went from spending over $50 a month to something like $15 for the slowsky version of DSL. Except even that won’t work.

We need to arrange for the DSL techs to come out to the house and fix what has been broken for over a year. It’s the principal. It’s irritating to me that we have to pay for the privilege of having an email address with them and nothing else. They were so surprised that we had the old copper wire. Well, they were the ones who installed it. And, the neighbors around us have been running their AT&T service on fiber optic cable for years? And, nobody told us? Right. I’m pissed off.

So, Number One on the Honey Do List for DeeDude is to get that thing fixed. Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll go back to them. I’d like to know that it works.

The Dentist

Guess what I learned today? You’re only supposed to have your upper and lower teeth touch when you are chewing, swallowing or talking. Otherwise, your teeth are supposed to be in a resting position; uppers and lowers not touching.

Guess what happens if that is not the case? They might tell you that after all these years you’ve got Bruxing, or grinding and gnashing of the teeth. By the way, the set pictured in this entry are not my own, but are courtesy of the website I linked to above.

It happens during the day if you go around with a clenched jaw. The condition can be attributed to unrelieved anger or stress. What it leads to is sensitive teeth. It leads to your enamel wearing away. It can lead to periodontal disease, locking of the jaw and a tendency to bite the inside of your cheek. It can lead to headaches, jaw aches, neck and shoulder pain, teeth that are chipped or worn down and broken fillings and busted up dental work.

Lovely. The solution is to get a night guard. It solves the problem of unconscious night grinding and can eventually help you to not clench your teeth during the day. Even while I was writing this I caught myself clenched up. Maybe I can wear it during the day too.

The psychic side of all of this? As I was sitting in the dentist's chair this morning I was being amused with scenes of Egypt. It was pretty terrific. Then, they trailed off saying they've never found my burial crypt. Interesting. What a crock you might say. Well, it helped to keep my mind off of what was going on in my mouth ...zzzzzzzttt... whhhoooooossshhhh... zzzzazzzztttt.... sssppppooochcchhhh....

I kept saying bad words silently and then apologizing to the guides... damn.. sorry... Jesus... sorry.... Oh, shit.... sorry. That's when they started with the Egypt stuff. Remind me to tell you about the time I had nitrous oxide and they started cracking the funnies for me. They don't call it laughing gas for nothing.

“Lisey's Story” by Stephen King

I’m reading “Lisey's Story” by Stephen King right now. He’s one of my favorite writers. I bought it awhile back as an impulse purchase while I was in the checkout line at our local grocery store. Nora Roberts (also one of my favorite writers) wrote a glowing review about it and that really intrigued me. Anyway, I’ve just started it and as usual Stephen King is pushing my buttons. I was thinking something along these lines anyway the other day about how I don’t feel totally honest as I’m writing. It’s a really strange feeling, but it’s almost as if I’m not giving it 100%. I’m holding something back.

In “Lisey's Story” I’m sort of thinking that little bit I seem to be holding back on that other people hold back too. It feels like where you connect to the Cosmos and we just don’t talk about that all the time. It’s too weird. There are no words for it.

That’s what I love about stories by Stephen King. They make me think about things. And, if you’ve never read my stuff before I should say that if it weren’t for Stephen King I wouldn’t be channeling right now. It was me on overload with reading his books when I broke through into the psychic realms. I mean, maybe it might have happened some other way, but somehow I just don’t think so. So, should it surprise me that weird things are going on as I read, “Lisey’s Story” now? Anyway, it’s interesting. Once I’m done I’ll write a review to post on my other blog. For now, it’s what I’m doing today.

Prayer

I get a lot of requests for prayers from people. I don’t know what other people do when they’ve had maybe 200 requests over time, but I just can’t always remember everybody individually so I send out an all encompassing group prayer. I think of people who’ve asked for themselves or for others including animals. I remember those who most recently asked for prayers, but I also count on those from a long time ago who asked me to pray for them too to float to the surface of my awareness. I ask that the prayers I send out also be intended for anybody who needs a prayer from me whether they had specifically asked or even if they haven’t asked. And, I send it out.

It’s not words specifically. It’s not formless either. It’s more like love and energy. It’s sort of like sending healing Reiki rays. Sort of. I know I’m doing something when I get a tingling at the top or side of my head. Right now, just talking about it I’ve got the “tingling” at my left eyebrow.

God forbid it should happen other areas….bwwwaaagghhhh.

Hey, who was that?

Me.

This is serious here. People ask for prayers all the time and I just wanted to talk about it. Then, you come in with talking about something crude.

How do you know it was crude?

Well, I could tell. Vibrating other places.

I should think that many of your viewers are going to think the same thing.

Well, maybe they would, but why now? That’s what I’m wondering about.

Why what?

Why are you talking now when I was having a perfectly nice blog about prayer.

Sometimes, Dear, you get too serious.

Oh. Like prayer isn’t as important as we think it is?

No, because prayers are heard no matter who says them or how they say them. It’s that people are relying upon you to relay their prayers when they can just as easily pray themselves. Why should you be the one who prays for everybody?

Well, why not? Other people do it.

We merely wanted to point out that prayers are heard no matter who says them. People can pray their own prayers too. Our blessings.

Hey, thanks.

You’re welcome.

Do You Really Need a Psychic?

What you really could use is a new perspective on an old situation. For you certainly, as the old saying goes, cannot see the forest for the trees. You are likely so immersed in the events of your own life that it is difficult to step back to have a look at what is going on.

In the best sense of what a psychic can do for you is to give you something to think about. It is always up to you whether you wish to follow the advice.

You can also get advice from relatives, from friends and from co-workers. But, you might also consider that the advice you get from them could very possibly be tainted with what they think they know of you particularly if they’ve known you for a long time and pride themselves on being uber familiar with you.

Everybody has secrets. There is always that one little corner of your heart that you don’t really tell people about. Or, if you have told them perhaps they haven’t really understood exactly how you feel. This distortion of what a person thinks they know about you is certainly going to affect the kind of advice they give you.

Also, if they’ve got their own personal axe to grind any advice you get from them is going to slant toward and support whatever causes they are in favor of.

That’s life.

So, you listen to advice, mull it over and decide to take it or not. Maybe you can keep the advice given to you in mind and customize the plan, doing it your way.

Dancing at Lughnasa

SALLY GARDEN

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

An Old Irish Folk Song

I just finished watching, “Dancing at Lughnasa” with Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon, and a host of other wonderful actors and actresses. Streep and Gambon are the ones I recognized, but others; Kathy McCormick, Sophie Thompson, Kathy Burke, Rhys Ifans and Brid Brennan were fabulous.

This is Ireland in the mid 1930’s and what a small boy remembered of his mother, his aunts, his uncle and his father from a short time one summer. I always gauge a book or a movie by how much I cry and I did cry buckets with this story. How Meryl Streep, the eldest sister fought to hold the family together and grieved so as times wore upon them and they were forced to move away from each other. All the sisters unmarried with the youngest one having a son. The boy’s father stopped by on his way to fight in Spain and renewed the love that had never died with the boy’s mother. And, how their eldest brother, Michael Gambon, a priest in Africa came home to die. This is how the times were rough, how they scrabbled a life from poverty and how through the love they had for each other clung to that and celebrated life together.

In a memorable scene towards the end of the movie the 5 sisters came together and danced with a wild and wonderful abandon totally at odds with the staid and proper behavior they generally held to. It was as if the passion they each held in their hearts could no longer be contained in just one human body each and they laughed and howled and were so very, very glad to dance and be with each other. Until the music stopped and they stood in a circle, panting with the exertion of the dance and just stood, arms limp at their sides staring at each other in disbelief and wonder that they had just come together in that dance.

I thought it was mind blowing.

When Spirit Whispers

Well, I finally took that very large step and am in the finalizing process of publishing my book. I renamed it to, "When Spirit Whispers" and have a really good feeling about it. I'll be offering the book for sale at LuLu.com for $10 or as a download for $3. I certainly don't expect to get rich with this, but it is something that I can offer to folks who are interested in my work.

I've actually got another book in the wings that I can begin work on now. It's the one on creativity that I began last November during the nanowrimo.org writing frenzy (National Novel Writing Month). It isn't a novel, but the combined efforts and enthusiasm of all the people participating in the endeavor helped to get me moving and off my butt. I need to finish it up.

The Naked Archaeologist

One of the things I really appreciate is a good television show. A show that DeeDude and I like to watch is, “The Naked Archaeologist”. Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian archaeologist who finds himself in the Middle East more times than not to investigate biblical history. Simcha, who is also the producer and director of the show, is absolutely hilarious, irreverent and endearing. He entertains his viewers so that they actually learn something.

“The Naked Archaeologist” is broadcast on the History International channel. Was Jezebel really that sexy? Eating the foods of the Bible. Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? These are just some of the episodes in the series. If you’ve got the opportunity give this show some air time in your house.

Eating Again? The Guides Help

I sat down this morning to do a little bit of writing and ended up doing a bit of channeling. Maybe it will help somebody who reads it.

What does it mean to honor yourself? Does it mean that you give into cravings so that you are always ready to supply your sweet tooth with whatever it wants? Does it mean that you think of yourself first and foremost before you think of other people?

In some cases, that would fit the bill. However, we ask that you think in terms of being healthy. If during a bout of depression or frustration you find yourself unable to express your feelings more than to bury them with adequate amount of food moving toward the idea that if it huts a Twinkie most certainly will make you feel better, we ask that you haul yourself up by some imaginary bootstraps and stop for a moment or two.

The next time you go to put something into your mouth put water instead. Water. A nice glass of water. For added comfort and sparkle and pizzazz add an ice cube or two.

Next, go out side for a bit of a walk. Not far. Just around the block. Not dressed? Get dressed. How hard is it to put on your blue jeans, a top and your shoes?

This is emergency first aid for your depressing behaviors.

Now, the hard part comes. It actually won’t take very long to do. You need about 20 minutes, maybe even just 10 minutes at a time. Our channel needs years to prepare.

It doesn’t get done in one day. It takes a long time to pick through the pain and heart ache a person might have and hold.

Here’s one way to do it.

Take a deep breath.

In your heart know that you are taking an inside journey to source of pain; to source of fear; wherever that might be. Know that you are safe.

As an adult you know how to take care of yourself. As a child you did not know how to take care of yourself. Other people did not understand what it was that you needed to express. Or, you were not allowed to express yourself.

Think of the frustrations you have lately experienced. Translate those feelings into memories from when you were a child.

When you were a baby you howled your displeasure. When you were three, and four, and five years old you were told to be quiet. When you were eight you learned to eat.

As an adult you kept quiet. As an adult you smoked, and you drank, and you ate to excess; to have a sense of control somewhere in your life. Something you regulated. You put it into your mouth. You were the one who said where, and what, and when. Control.

Allow whatever is there to surface for you to look at. Allow the child in your past to express themselves, to feel whatever is there for them to feel.

Aieee. Pauline back again. There is always hope.