A Story

I don’t talk about this very often. There are pages at my other sites, static pages, pages that are done, where the information has been set out. But, folks don’t go there very often and I figure that maybe, just maybe you’d like to hear a story today.

I was normal up until the time I turned 35. It was during that year that I’d quit my job and declared myself to be a writer. No more secretarial work for me. No, siree. I’d spent the last 3 years hammering out a three-hanky tear jerker, swash-buckling, romance, fantasy novel. No way I could go back to being a 9 to 5 secretary after I’d finally done that. I would continue to write. On a new project. A brand new book. I was off and running and nobody could stop me now.

Right. I got a major case of instant writer’s block. It was sort of frightening because the job was long gone and I wasn’t doing much. Then, circumstances changed a bit and I got sick. I mean I don’t remember being this sick. It was the summer cold to end all summer colds. I was coughing and snorting and feverish and plumb totally miserable. Did I go to the doctor? No. It was just a cold. But, I was really disturbing my husband’s sleep. Also, my sleep patterns were all screwed up. I dozed and slept during the day and at night I was all restless and making noise. So, I moved my operations out to the living room sofa at night so he could sleep and continue to report for duty at the job he still had.

I got tired of watching tv. I hadn’t watched daytime tv in 20 years and I got my fill of it again. What to do now? I had writer’s block and I was sick and tired of tv. I was sort of on the mend by that time. I guess it was a week into my sick. But, I still felt pretty miserable. I wanted to read something.

I decided to go to the library and pick up some Stephen King books. I’d only read the one, “The Stand” a few months before. I liked it so much I read it in 3 days over a weekend. I’d never read any Stephen King before that. I’d just been plain scared. Didn’t watch his movies and didn’t read his books. No, siree. Too scary for me.

But, I’d loved, “The Stand”. That sucker weighs 5 pounds. It’s a big book. It took him twelve years to write and this is a guy who can churn out a book a year. I was in love.

So, I went to the library. I had to ride the bus because we only had the one car and my husband had taken it to go to work. I tried not to pass my cold onto anybody else. I covered my mouth and turned my head when I felt a coughing fit come on. I tried not to even look at anybody. I swept the shelves at the library of books by Stephen King. As much as I could carry. It must have been 6 or 7 of them.

And, a week later I was back for more. He’s written so much that finding that many more books by him wasn’t too hard to do. He’s a prolific writer. He’s a successful writer. He’s a very, very good writer.

And, a week later I was back for more.

I over dosed on books by Stephen King. I remember the first thing that happened was I saw the numbers 222 on the microwave. The first time I saw it I didn’t think too much of it. It was sort of interesting to see three numbers in a sequence like that. The second time was a little unsettling. The third time and I started getting freaked out. In the years that have come and gone since I was 35 (I’m 53 at the time of this writing) I have seen 222 many times. A day doesn’t go by and I notice it somewhere. I don’t read a book, not one book that my eyes don’t fly to the page number as I light on page 222. But, back to when it first started happening? I remember going to the grocery store and writing a check for $22.22. I remember the microwave. I called my sister to tell her about it. She called me back the next day to tell me after we’d talked she’d gone to her bank and looked up at the revolving sign that has the time on one side and the temperature on the other: 2:22.

The next thing that happened was I began having really, really vivid waking dreams. Oh, shit it was so real. The next book I was going to read was, “It”, the one with the terrible clown. I hadn’t started it yet. But, it was going to be the next one. Here’s the vision I had. I was laying on the couch not doing much of anything. Sort of doing the doze thing drifting in and out. I was not completely asleep. It was a semi sleep sort of thing. Suddenly, I’m at the front window. I’ve parted the curtains and I’m looking down our steps. Up comes this really tall, really scary guy with a fucking jack-o-lantern for a head. I jerked right wide awake.

Then, there was another vision with me looking down those same steps watching a young woman make her way up them. She’s holding onto the railing with both hands, doing one of those hand over hand movements because she’s afraid to let go. She’s dressed nicely, in a neat grey suit. She’s wearing a skirt. She looks up at me as she nears the top of the flight of steps and smiles at me. I wake up.

By now I’ve freaked. I go back to the library and start looking up ESP. Colin Wilson wrote a really thick book about it. I fan through it to find the part where he’s saying ESP is natural. ESP is normal. ESP is not something you need to be afraid of.

When we were kids we all were delightedly spooked by things ESP. Now, here as an adult I’m worried about it.

So, my journey had started. This happened and that happened and I began to read about inner journeys. I began to journal. I began to read books written by people who were channeling. Seth was one of them. I’d actually read the first Seth book, "Seth Speaks" when I was in high school and been fascinated by it. I read it again. I got into the, “Messages from Michael” books. I read, “The Magic of Findhorn”. I started, “A Course in Miracles”. I found, “Creating Money” on our bookshelf. Actually, my husband had purchased both of those books years before for himself. Now, I was reading them. But, from “Creating Money” I went on to “Opening to Channel” by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer. That’s when the ball really started rolling down the hill.

I decided that I wanted to learn how to channel. I kept at it for a very long time. I was terrible at the exercises. I couldn’t visualize worth a crap. I couldn’t concentrate to meditate. I just didn’t seem to be able to do anything. But, I kept at it. Then, I thought to myself that I’d try something that wasn’t really recommended in the book. I’d try working a Ouija board. Who to do it with me? Who else, but my husband. And, for pity sake it worked. The planchette zoomed all over the board. We asked if this was my guide. Nope. It was DeeDude’s guide. What???? I was the one who was seeking my guide. I was the one who’d been trying for so long to make ding-donged contact with my guide and we get my husband’s guide? What’s up with that?

So, I can live with that. I couldn’t get enough of being on the board to talk to my husband’s guide. But, then, my husband doesn’t want to do it anymore. Accckkkk! What do you mean you don’t want to do it anymore? I can’t do this by myself.

Nope, doesn’t want to do it anymore. His guide doesn’t want to talk to us anymore.

Oh, shit. So, I give up. I can’t ask my neighbor to help. What would he think of me? I can’t do it myself. I go back to the blankty-blank exercises in, “Opening to Channel” that’s I’m no good at anyway. Nothing happens. Zippo. I’m getting disgusted.

It occurs to me, out of the blue one day, that maybe I can do the Ouija board by myself. That’s how they did it in, “Messages from Michael”. The channel would sit in a rocking chair by themselves with a board in their lap. Somebody off to the side would take dictation and write down what was being spelled out. If they could do it, I could too. I have in the years since found those words to be particularly magical for me: If they can do it, so can I.

Nothing happened. I would sit and wait with the planchette on the board and nothing happened. I’d pray. I’d try to meditate. I’d concentrate. Nothing happened.

I used to drag my hand around with my other hand to see what it would be like when it finally happened, just so I wouldn’t miss anything. Sort of like when you were 9 and you’d kiss your arm to see what it would feel like to actually kiss a boy on the lips.

I’d continued on with reading, “Opening to Channel” I do have to say that I did finally meet my guide. It was the Meet Your Guide exercise. You close your eyes and imagine that you’re walking on a path. Picture the path in your mind’s eye. What’s going on directly under your feet? What’s growing at the side of the path? Look ahead of you. See an obstacle (I saw a huge rock). Make your way past the obstacle (I went around it). Continue your walk. Look ahead. The path moves up on an incline. You see a gate or an opening way, way down the road. Move forward, move towards it. It was at this point in my own journey that I turned into a swallow and soared in the sky. It was pretty exhilarating. I flew past these huge humped green mountainous hills like you see in Hawaii. As I got to the gate I turned back into myself and thumped down on the ground. I looked through and saw this guy in a toga with his back to me. He was bent over doing something in a garden. There was a low stone wall there. He turned to me. Balder than a cue ball he was, but he smiled at me. He held out his hands to me and I couldn’t take my eyes off of his face. He had such a glorious smile. Then, I startled myself awake. I combed the internet looking for those green hills in Hawaii that I saw in my vision and the closest I could get was Molokai at Hawaii Pictures. It's still not quite what I saw. Mine where like green thumbs sticking up into the air. Lots of them with their sides practically vertical and covered with green. But, this picture is close.

Anyway, I practiced using the Oujia board by myself. That took 6 months. Six months of nothing happening. At the end of it I decided that I’d been wasting my time. I remember that night: I said to myself that I needed to get back to writing again. I’d been neglecting it so. But, to hedge my bets I decided to squeeze the keyboard over and put the Ouija board on the desk alongside. My left hand, my non-dominant hand could rest on the Ouija board and my right hand could do all the typing. I was a good typist. I knew where all the keys were. I could do this with one hand. So, I did. I began typing. It was certainly slower than if I were using two hands, but the thoughts were flowing. I was writing again.

My hand that was on the Ouija board zoomed. The planchette fell on the floor. I was absolutely shocked. What???? What????

I got the planchette back and set the board up and using my left hand put it back on the board. It spelled out: Seth. I asked the question, are you my guide? I got a yes. I asked the question are you the same Seth from Jane Roberts? I got a yes. After that it was just gobble gook. Just garbage. The planchette meandered all over the board. Didn’t spell anything out that I could tell. Just moved all over the place. I was thrilled. I was exhausted.

Now, a year and a half has passed since I’d quit my job. But, in November they’d called me to come back. The lady we’d hired to take my place had given two weeks notice. Now, it was February. Lots had happened since then. My husband had broken his back in January and was laid up. I was frantic. The bills were piling up. Our situation was a mess. But, I did have a job. So, I went to work the next day. When I got home the first thing I did was set up the Ouija board and we were able to talk some. It wasn’t all garbage like the day before.

Turns out I guess they were getting me ready, or used to it or something. Anyway, as time went on things got a lot faster using the Ouija board to talk to Seth. It would just zoom and zip so quickly over the board. People couldn’t read what was being said it moved so quickly. I began to anticipate what was going to be said even before the planchette hit those letters.

That’s when I said to myself that I’d gone crazy. And, that’s when my guide said to me, in my head, in my ears so that I could hear him for the first time, “Go outside. I have something important to say to you.” It was noisy in the house. The television was going. Lots of background noise. I stepped out onto the porch and Seth said, “You can hear me now.”

It was a week and a half, ten days after I’d first gotten the Ouija board to work. That was Feb 12th. So, now it was Feb 22nd. 2/22 for those folks out there remembering that this whole thing began with me seeing 222’s everywhere.

It’s been 16 years gone since that time. I’m a channel. I no longer hear the guides and Folk in Spirit through my ears. It’s a telepathic sort of thing. I can say that I talk to dead people. I also teach people to channel.

What brought this on? I just picked up Stephen Kings, “Duma Key” from the library yesterday. Big fat book. I can hardly wait.

Moving Along

I’m reading a book right now that has been one disappointment after another. I’m almost half way done with it and I sat there on the commode this morning wondering why I didn’t just stop reading it. I looked at how far I’d come and thought to myself that it wasn’t going to get any better. Then, I thought of all the days that I’d wasted reading this book.

I thought to the particular things I did not care for about the book. It wasn’t the story because I think any story can be made interesting. It was the way the author didn’t seem to be moving the story along. If you can imagine you’ve got a point A, B and C to move through from beginning to end to make the story happen, it felt to me like this story was moving from A to New York, to Myrtle Beach, to B, to Safeway and then to Walgreens, and finally maybe to C. There were jolts to the story. You’d be sailing along and suddenly a character would make an observation that had absolutely nothing to do with either the story or with developing their character.

So, in the moment that I was deciding that the book wasn’t going to get any better and that I could spend my time doing something more productive it slammed into me what this was supposed to be about.

The lesson here is that I could learn something important even from the boring bits of my life.

Life doesn’t have to be totally riveting all the time. It doesn’t have to be one thrill after another to count as a well spent life. The boring parts can actually be interesting too. And, if I move into more considering moments along the way I could make my life lessons count for more too.

And, with that, I’ll probably return the book to the library and not think about it any more.

Happiness

I’ve been thinking about happiness lately. What got me started was somebody in one of the blogs I read (I’m sorry, but I forget who otherwise I’d reference your blog) suggested reading, “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. When I’m done reading it I’ll write up a review for it on my book reading blog, but in the meantime it’s made me think. And, I like that.

Daniel Gilbert is a psychotherapist. He’s also down to earth. So, on the one hand where the book reads like a Sage (orator on stage) from the Michael teachings it is actually very instructive and entertaining. It asks the questions I have found myself wondering about off and on for years.

Just what exactly is happy? Is your happy the same as my happy? How can you say you are happy when you’ve hardly had any world experience?

Gilbert busies himself with explaining why our brains work the way they do. Why because we are still hardwired the same way we were thousands of years ago that we would flee before danger before we answer the question, “What the hell was that?” It’s just interesting as anything. At least, I’m interested.

Gilbert does not hesitate to use himself as an example. I think that’s sort of unusual for a writer to do that. I appreciate it. It sort of brings him closer to me. It makes me want to turn the page and find out what else this quirky guy is going to talk about.

Now, for my own thoughts about happiness. I can only talk about my own experiences. I am happiest when I am alone. I’m married. I’ve got 6 cats. I work. I deal with folks everyday, but I’m happiest when I am alone. Actually, I’m a writer and writers do what they do alone. So, it fits. Would this be happiness for somebody else? Probably not.

So, that brings up the idea that there are all sorts of happiness out there. It would just depend on who the person is.

Except, what about people who are happy under what we might consider to be absolutely rotten, miserable circumstances?

I talked to a lady yesterday who said that she thought in terms of there being happenings in a person’s life. She said everybody has things that happen to them throughout their lives, but there can be an underlying joy that shines forth through all the happenings. She said this explained to her why she would come across people who were grumpy and to her way of thinking she couldn’t figure out what they had to be grumpy about. And, that made sense to me too.

What do you think?

Where I Consider Resolutions

I’m not too sure what I want to do. It’s interesting to me that during the course of any year, lately anyway, that ideas to do things sort of spring upon me and I either act upon them then or I don’t. I also don’t lose a lot of sleep over this process. If something sounds sort of difficult to manage at the point of inspiration I typically put it on a back-burner and return to it later on where I might or might not have had a revelation about how to proceed.

The idea, though, is to allow these ideas room to grow. And, I, being the one in charge of my life can either act upon them or not.

Except when the new year rolls around. That’s when I start looking at my feet while I’m dancing and inevitably start tripping myself up.

Stupid resolutions. I never keep them. It sounds like a good idea at the time, but it’s a sort of forced idea. It doesn’t flow naturally from where I am now to where I’d like to be at the end of the year. I don’t know that I’ve ever kept a single resolution that I made. To be generous I would imagine some of the ideas I had eventually did pay off and I actually did end up keeping them, but if you ask me now I really can’t remember any of them.

The thing that I think does work is that I can remember I am constantly in motion. I know that I’m not exactly the same person now that I was at the beginning of this year.

For one thing I am calmer. Now, why is that? I’m not sure. But, it’s a good thing. Believe me, it’s a much better thing. It might have to do with the fact that my husband is a lot calmer. He quit his job in April to write full time. At first I was panic stricken. Slowly, though, I moved through the panic, faced some of my own personal demons, and got over it. Maybe that was the key thing to do.

Anyway, that’s sort of off the point. The idea is that I’m calmer now than I was before. I’ve got all kinds of hopes for the new year. I guess that’s where that old phrase, “Hope springs eternal” comes from. So do resolutions.

So, while I will likely make a few resolutions this year maybe I can school myself to reconsider them when my fortitude to keep them appears to be flagging. Maybe at the point (probably 2 weeks into the new year) where I suddenly begin to lose interest in losing weight I am able to encourage myself without shaming myself into continuing on. Maybe a small quiet meditation would be the ticket.

I could center myself. I could move inside to where I, like all of us are, am perfect just the way we are. The center of soul. That part of us that continues through each lifetime, that moves with determination and with purpose into and out of the many lifetimes we have had. The inner part of us that does not fear, that understands beyond belief, that has a personal and permanent connection to Source. I want to be there just for a moment or two to connect again with who I really am. The stuff in this lifetime is the clothes I am wearing. The stuff at the center is me naked; where flab is not so important, where wrinkles don’t matter, where what really matters is love and creativity and laughter. If I connect for a few moments I believe I can come away from the encounter and be a little kinder towards myself and by extension to everybody in my life.

Happy New Year Everybody.

On Edge?

If you find yourself on edge and cranky a lot of the time consider that maybe there’s something, one small thing you might do in making a mind/heart adjustment for yourself that will magically alter the way you perceive the world around you.

Consider that the thing that needs attention for your world to be bright and sunny, for you to be cheerful again, is buried deep in your heart and in your memories. This thing will have happened to you when you were younger, but it very well could be something that is left over from previous lifetimes as well. This is the core work to be done. You might address it occasionally as you age, as you move through your life. You might address a corner of this stone, examine one facet of this multi-faceted gem that sits at the core of you and find that things ease up for you for a time. But, somehow this thing always seem to come back to haunt you.

It might be that you feel a mild depression settle upon you. It might be that you hurt your foot again. How does this happen? Why does it always happen before a big meeting that you manage to hurt your foot? It’s weird.

These could be the outward manifestations of this multi-faceted stone that sits at the heart of you. This problem if you will, or a life lesson, a multi-lifed lesson that waits patiently for you to chip away at.

Knowing the symptoms are there and the issues still awaiting your pleasure why not have the courage to look at them? It doesn’t have to be an in-depth look. It doesn’t have to be a prolonged look. What counts here is the acknowledgement that it is there and the promise that you will look into the matter.

That’s all.

There are all sorts of ways for the how of it, for the ways to go about healing the hurts inside of you. But, the first step, the most important steps of all are to acknowledge that it exists and to make the promise to the universe, to your higher self, that you will look into the matter.

It’s like a dose of WD-40.

Do it now or do it next lifetime. The choice is yours.

Larger Might Not Be Better

I am considering my email. Why would anybody want a larger penis? It’s not going to fit in your pants anymore. You’ll need to get underware and slacks specially made. You’re going to have trouble getting into and out of your car. Picture this: As you open the car door the next move you make is going to cup your hand to protect your scrotum as you ease slowly, butt first into your car. Then, you’ll probably honk your horn with your elbow.

What else could go wrong? You’ll probably hit the back of the commode as you pee. Your range is going to be off. Women will scream at the sight of you and run fleeing into the night. It’s just not worth it. We like you just the way you are.

Twing, Twang, Twonginginging

One of the things that was a part of my life up until recent years was the idea that I not express my opinion too loudly. I remember when someone actually did ask my opinion about something when I was in my late teens I didn’t know what to say. I remember wondering what it was that I was supposed to say.

I don’t know if this all came about because of how I was raised or the age I was raised in, or perhaps, it is a combination of both. In recent years I have begun to find my own voice and my own courage. Expressing myself in the venue of my blogs and website on the internet was just what I needed.

In my job where I spend the requisite 40 hours a week I have duties I attend to. I do them in what I see as a professional manner. I am not stilted in my manner, but neither do I have an old hippy manner about me. I’m sort of in-between. I do know I make people laugh, which is certainly not a requirement that I be a stand up comedian secretary, but it takes the edge off the day sometimes. But, I have to admit that I am not totally myself there. They don’t know me as a psychic and I don’t channel for them. Those parts of me are unobtrusive. Perhaps the training I had as a child and teenager has stood me in good stead after all.

I am very grateful to be able to let my hair down here. I don’t know that anybody else will read this. I don’t know that they care. But, I hope that I might strike a chord with somebody occasionally with what I write. That twanging they hear as I write my thoughts echoes their own, makes them think and maybe helps them as this writing helps me.

A way to express myself.