Manifesting, Energy, and Broken Down Cars....

Today was my class on manifesting your heart's desires. I had been preparing for this class for some time. At the beginning I had only two people sign up for the class and I wasn't sure if the class would even go on. That is some testimony for someone teaching a class on manifesting, right? You mean you can't even manifest people to come to your class and you are teaching a class on manifesting? That is what the voices in my head were saying to me.

But I was determined to continue to prepare for the class. I decided that I would manifest this class at some time or another, whether or not it happened now or some other time and place. It was going to happen. I remember one time hearing a preacher who booked an auditorium and the owner of the auditorium asking him when he planned on paying the fees and he said, " this is not my problem. Why don't you ask God when we are going to pay?" So I determined that the class would be held. It was not my problem who would be showing up for the class.

So it ended up the class went on as scheduled and those who came were exactly who Spirit had in mind to attend anyway. There is no need for me to stress over the details. We had a wonderful class and a good turnout!!

Now the kicker. The day before the class my car left me stranded for the first time since I have owned the car. I had to sit on the side of the road, waiting for a tow truck. I had to depend on a ride home. Once home, I was thinking about the significance of the event. I believe that everything that happens to me is significant and has some meaning or message from Spirit. Years ago when I was in a low point in my life I had continuous car problems. Symbolically it spoke to me of my destination in life, my path always seeming to be at risk. Cars are very symbolic of our paths in life and the means we have of traveling our spiritual path. The fact that my current car had been so dependable for the six or seven years I have owned it is symbolic to me of having had a smooth ride for the past seven years.

So once home from my ordeal I had some alone time to connect with Spirit and ask ... What is going on here? I thought my path was moving forward. I have been happy with my path recently.

Once I had connected with my Spirit Guides I immediately got the message that in the past few days many of those of us who are blessed in this lifetime with being what has been termed a Lightworker, those who have been commissioned to increase the vibration on the planet, have been going through a change in our vibrational frequency. Our electrical wiring has been undergoing an upgrade, my Angels told me.  Sometimes physical objects with which you have a connection may have a reaction. My Angels told me that it was important to reestablish my connection with things in my possession that may react to the change in my frequency. They also told me that my body may be undergoing some changes and I may feel out of sorts for a few days. Don't be alarmed, They told me. Now before you argue the logic of the message, let me tell you that none of my other electrical appliances or gadgets have seemed to have any reaction to any change in my energy. I did lose my patience with two difficult customers in the past couple of days, which is completely out of character for me. It would be easy to say, " oh, I am experiencing an energy upgrade. Please be patient with me."

My completely wonderful but logical husband would say, " Oh Joy, not everything is a sign. Sometimes things just happen. It doesn't have to mean anything." Yes, but it is much more fun to connect with Spirit and get a message from the comings and goings of my life. This time my message was, " you are experiencing a temporary systems upgrade. Please be patient." And... " you have issues of control. This is allowing you the experience of not having control..." ( this was my secondary message, of which I will write a future blog.....)

For now I am sending love and light to my car and to those who have been assigned the task of assessing what is wrong and how to fix it. And I am thanking the Universe for  the blessing of having a car in the first place which has been so wonderful for the past several years and having not a care in the world except to turn the key and expect it to start. This has not always been the case for me, which is another future blog.....

Musings About Astrology, Manifesting, and Joy

About a year ago I received an astrological reading and the person who read my chart told me my biggest challenge in this lifetime.  He told me that I would be dealing with that challenge at least until October or November of this year. At the time I received the astrological reading I was not really happy with that information. We all want to hear the good stuff, don't we? We want to hear that we are really needed by the Angels to provide our services to mankind. At least that is what I want to hear. I guess some might want to know that they are going to win the lottery or something else more spectacular but I just want to be of service.  I had forgotten about the reading until this morning. I got up early to go to work as I normally do on Saturday and I had gone out to my car for my lunch break. I was feeling kind of low and asked the Angels to give me some sort of encouragement. I picked up my handy dandy "journal" I guess you might call it. It is the book I take notes in of all the training I attend and interspersed are some positive affirmations, maybe a bit of my own musings, some dreams that I thought worth writing down and just a hodge podge of different information which I felt worth writing down. I opened it up randomly and it happened to open up to the page of notes I had taken on the astrological reading I had had almost a year ago. He mentioned in the reading that March and April were going to be particularly challenging for me due to some conjunction with the "planet" Chiron. Believe it or not this made me feel so much better!!

I am writing this because I just wanted to encourage anyone who reads this to know that it is okay sometimes to question your path. It is okay to take a step back and reevaluate yourself. I love that song by Alanis Morrisette which talks about how sometimes she is the most  wonderful person you would ever want to be around and sometimes she is just a moody..$%@#(**.....(check out the words to her song.. "Everything")...here is just a snipit...

I can be an #%$(*** of the grandest kind
I can withhold like it's going out of style
I can be the moodiest baby and you've never met anyone
Who is as negative as I am sometimes

I am the wisest woman you've ever met.
I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.
I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen
And you've never met anyone
Who's as positive as I am sometimes.

I blame everyone else, not my own partaking
My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating
I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you've never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here

What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know
What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go

I'm the funniest woman that you've ever known
I'm the dullest woman that you've ever known
I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known
And you've never met anyone
Who is as everything as I am sometimes

And yes, then I am scheduled to teach a workshop on manifesting. Isn't it ironic?  (another Alanis Morissette song)...

Okay so here is the thing about manifesting that I do plan on including in the workshop. We are all on this earth and we have probably preplanned before we were born these particular lessons to learn and challenges to overcome. And we can say mantras all day long and do vision boards and positive affirmations till we are blue in the face and guess what? Sometimes things don't manifest the way we want them to.  But the most important thing we can manifest is joy. And that is what we should focus on. Not the new car or the new job or the new relationship. Yes it is good to desire those things and there is nothing wrong with that. But the more we focus on joy the easier it is for that new car or that new job or that new relationship to manifest.

So anyway, I got out of my car after my little epiphany and went back inside to work and just asked the Angels to help me have joy while I was at work. I asked myself, what would it take for me to have joy today? And the answer at the moment was... for my day to flow like clock work...and then I said a little mantra that I was thankful that the Angels and I were enjoying a day that flows like clockwork... and it did...despite the challenges....and I realize...when the joy is inside, nothing can steal it away.  I can choose to lose it or give it away but  nothing can make me unhappy without my permission.

And I am here to say that manifesting is just like that. Why don't we put aside those big manifesting desires like cars or houses or jobs or relationships and just for today, let's manifest some joy. And the rest will take care of itself.

The Man in the Iron Mask

Remember several years ago the movie that came out The Man in the Iron Mask? I understand it was a remake of an older movie of the same name, but the one I saw was the more recent version. I had long forgotten about the movie until today.

Today I was privileged to channel a message from the higher realms for a friend. After she left, I felt like the presence of the Being of Light was still in my energy field, and that She was not finished.  So I got comfortable on my meditation chair, and asked if there was anything else She wanted to share with me. Right away She began to speak, and this is what She said.  I thought that part or all of this message might resonate with others, so I share it here.

"Joy," She said, " sometimes you have wondered if you might be a "step-in", a soul who steps into a body when the other soul is finished with their lessons in order to complete this lifetime. You feel so disjointed sometimes from your life in the past. You look back on your past and sometimes feel like the person you used to be was someone else and you are just looking back on someone else's life. This is funny to Us. No you are not a step in."

"You remind Us of the man in the movie, "The Man in the Iron Mask." Remember that he was the heir to the throne that was whisked away from his rightful place as royalty and placed in a prison with an iron mask on his face to hide his identity. You have spent your life with a mask upon your face to hide who you really are inside, hidden even from yourself. Over the years the Angels have come and rescued you from this prison, removing the mask, revealing to you your true divinity, as is the birthright of every human born onto the earth. And although the Angels have attempted to reveal to you who you really are, it has taken some time to get you to the place where you are now. You see, you as humans are divinity. You are heirs to the throne. You are creators of your own destiny. You are royalty.

"By being born onto the earth, your identity has been hidden. Those in authority have convinced you that you are powerless, and that you need help and control from others who know more than you do to keep your life straight. The mask of who you really are is placed upon your face from a very young child. This is so that the authorities could maintain control. And who was the authority? Fear, Insecurity, Low Self Esteem, Rejection. You gave your power over to the power of Fear. And Fear kept you imprisoned all these years."

"At some point the mask was removed and you have been hard at work discovering your divinity. And so it is that the person you used to be with the mask on your face is now foreign to you, and sometimes you wonder who that former version of yourself really was, was that you? And We say, yes, it was you, but an abbreviated version. Now you can stand tall in your divinity and realize who you are and why you are here. You are here to experience joy and to show others who are walking through this lifetime with masks upon their hearts and their souls who they really are. That they are royalty. They are divinity."

And so today the Angels want you to know that you are magnificent! It is time to take off those masks of insecurity, doubt, and fear and rise up and know that you are divinity. The power to make your life heaven on earth is within you. The mask is not you. Look in the mirror and know that you are heir to the throne of your own destiny. No one else but you is in charge of making your life wonderful. Let us remove those masks and come to know who we really are. And we are grand!!

Sandolphin

Yesterday morning I woke with a compulsion to rid my home of clutter. Even though the weather outside was delightful and on a normal day I would have forgone any housework for a day outside, I felt compelled to dig out and rid myself of long held onto objects that had outlived their value in my daily life. Some things found their way into the trash. Some found their way into the goodwill pile, and some found their way to the storage area under the house. It seemed I was on a mission to rid my home and my space of no longer useful "stuff."

At some point during my frenzy, I felt the presence of something "other" worldly. The physical sensation I get when "Spirit" makes itself known to me is a rush through my heart chakra. It only lasted a moment and then it was gone.

I don't remember if it was before or after the "rush" I was putting some things away and I came upon some of my Angel cards. One of them fell out of the pile, (which is Spirit's way of saying .... LOOK AT ME). It was Archangel Sandolphon. The card said.." be gentle with yourself at this time. Surround yourself with gentle people, situations, and environments."  I did not really resonate with the card and put it back. I decided to try to get a different card, just for fun. I shuffled the deck of cards, and guess what. I got the same card...

I am not sure if I have ever heard of Archangel Sandolphon. I think I learned something about him in an Angel class sometime, but the names of the Angels have never really stuck with me, with the exception of the most well known ones.  One time my Angels told me that names were not as important to them as they were to us. I have never tried to associate the Angels I talk to with the ones that have had stories written about them for centuries. So I put the card up on the shelf where I could see it and decided to try to connect with him later.

A few hours later my husband Clay and I took a walk in the park and we went to our favorite spot where Spirit often makes itself known to us. After awhile we both commented that we didn't really feel anything at this particular time. I had the passing thought of Sandolphon and immediately I felt that rush again. When I did my husband said, " Oh I just felt a rush go through my heart." Obviously Sandolphon is trying to make himself known to us. I am not sure how my husband feels about the Angels. I did mention my experience with the cards and that I had just had the thought about Sandolphon and we both felt the rush at the same time. One of those things you just can't explain.

I am open to having an interaction with Sandolphon but so far it has only been this passing rush through my heart and then he is gone. I am trying to be gentle with myself. Thanks Sandolphon. Sometimes we don't know what we need but the Angels do.

Just some thoughts........

I wanted to talk a little today about who you are and who you think you are.

In a couple of weeks I will be doing a workshop on manifesting your heart's desires. This is just a little snipit of what we will be talking about and working on. I am looking forward to doing this workshop because I end up learning some stuff too. It seems whenever I do a talk on any particular subject I have my agenda all lined up and I know the subject matter I am going to be covering, but I am always open to Spirit to intervene and change things up, and this happens almost every time. I can do two workshops on the very same subject and they will turn out completely different, depending on who shows up. Spirit always knows who is going to be there and who needs to hear something in particular, and I always surrender my agenda to Spirit.

This proves that Spirit knows who you are and what you need at any particular time. There are no accidents in your life. But do you know who you are? So many times we underestimate who we are and what we can accomplish in our lives, putting it off to the future until the "right" time. Or we give our power to someone else, thinking that because "so and so" is doing this or that, our lives cannot move forward. These are all lies we tell ourselves.

No one can make your life move forward and no one can keep it from moving forward except yourself. You are your own best friend and your own worst enemy!! Spirit is always there to help, but your Angels and Guides will not do the work for you. It seems those of us who travel in metaphysical circles like to hear messages from the Angels on what to do next, but sometimes the Angels say, "do what I already told you and then I will tell you something else."

Spirit has given me a tool to help myself and those who come to me know where they are in the circle of life and what obstacles they may need to work on at the particular time of their life that they are living right at this moment. I will be including in the upcoming workshop a complementary reading using this tool, which I call a medicine wheel reading. Depending on the size of the class and our time constraints, I will most likely give a reading at a future time when both of us can focus on the reading.

Ultimately, the best thing we can manifest in our lives is to be happy. If there are blockages to your happiness, then there are tools to use to move those obstacles out of the way. Let us learn to enjoy the present, lay to rest the past, and look forward with joy to the future. Life is an adventure and it is up to us to rise to the occasion!!

Rebirth

Easter is right around the corner, and this time of year many people are thinking about bunnies and eggs, which represent new life, and then of course many are thinking of the Christian tradition of celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus also at this time of year. As you may have read in my previous blogs, I had been going through a sort of death and rebirth myself, as I contemplated my life so far and the things I have accomplished and the direction I wanted my life to take.  This is a normal process of life, and periodically it is good to self evaluate, looking back at the direction your life has taken and make some adjustments, if necessary.

As I mentioned also in my previous blog, I had been studying the Native American tradition of the medicine wheel, and while learning it my teacher had given me a medicine wheel reading, which indicated that I was in the death position.  I wanted to explain a little bit about the concept of the medicine wheel and how it relates to our lives. In the Native American tradition, all of life is medicine. Our lives go around in circles, as also indicated in the wheel of fortune card in the tarot.  We go around the wheel of life, learning as we go, possibly going through similar things over and over until we  get the lesson. Sometimes we may go around the wheel of life slowly, possibly completing the circle only once or twice in an entire lifetime, and sometimes we find ourselves going around several times. Each position in the circle has a meaning. In a future blog I may explain this in a little more depth, but for this particular blog I just wanted to give a short explanation of the concept.

So if we take Jesus' life as an example, I would say by the stories in the Bible that he perhaps went through the death position twice in his lifetime. The first time was the time he went out in the desert for forty days and was "tempted" by the "devil". I am sure that Jesus knew his purpose and was contemplating how to best accomplish this purpose. Whether the "devil" was an actual entity that came to him physically and tempted him or whether it was a voice inside of his head, as we all have sometimes ideas or voices inside of us telling us things that are contrary to what we know to be true, it doesn't matter. He was having a crisis of faith. The idea came to him to jump off a cliff and expect the angels to rescue him and this would give him notoriety and fame. It appears that Jesus was trying to decide how best to get his message to the world, how to be noticed. The second time as we all know was when he gave himself up to be crucified. I imagine this was not his first choice of how to get his message out there either.

 We all have to go through the death process, whether it be a physical death or a spiritual one or an emotional one. We are not alone. We all know how it feels to have something end. Something important to us. Some of us end up getting stuck there. We can't move on from that ended relationship, or that lost dream, or that lost job, or whatever. The good news is that the next position on the medicine wheel is that of rebirth. We have to allow ourselves to be reborn. Just like in the spring the flowers start to bloom, the eggs hatch, the leaves start to bud on the trees once again. In the Christian tradition after three days Jesus rose from the dead. There are words to a song on the radio which say... "every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end..."

So as Easter approaches, take some time to contemplate what things have outlived their place in your life and need to be allowed to die a good death, so that something new can be reborn. It may be just a way of thinking. It may be the direction your life has taken so far. Whatever it is, remember that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.......if something dies then something is about to be reborn. It may not take the form you expected. But it will be good.

The Man Without a Hand

I wrote in my last blog that since I got back from Florida it seemed for the last week that I have not been quite myself.  I have found myself questioning my path and how to make it all work. I had resolved within myself that things do not have to manifest in one certain way, the way I had them planned out in my head. I am soon to do a seminar on manifesting, and one of the points concerning manifesting that I have learned is that sometimes things manifest differently from the way we have them planned out in our little finite minds. If we are consumed with our lives or our plans working out in a particular way, then we are stuck. I had resolved that my life does not have to pan out exactly how I had it planned out, but I was unresolved on what my next step was.

So I had been home a week and it came to be Sunday, my day off from work. The Universe was looking kindly upon me, because the weather was promising to be lovely and my dear husband suggested some time outdoors. This is always therapeutic for me and I was looking forward to some connection with Nature and also some quality time with hubby. We decided to head out to the park, where there are some lovely places to connect with nature and with Spirit, whether it be the Higher Intelligence, the Spirits of nature, or other non physical presences with whom we have also had occasion to connect.

Each of us settled into a comfy spot, and I closed my eyes and connected with Spirit. Immediately my wrist and hand began to hurt. When I was driving back from Florida, at some point south of Richmond, VA I had noticed pain in my right wrist, but I had attributed it to twelve or thirteen hours of driving. The pain and come and gone since I had been back, but as I connected with the spirit realms at this time in the park it occurred to me that perhaps I had picked up some nonphysical presence south of Richmond. At times in the past I have connected with those no longer in body by feeling pain in my body.  So at this time I asked the pain if it belonged to me or if someone was there who was not me. I immediately felt the presence of a man, not very young but not very old, who made himself known to me. He did not tell me his name but he did tell me that he had lost his hand in Afghanistan. Then I asked him why he had attached himself to me and he replied that he knew I could help him. I asked him if the part of him that attached to me was part of the soul of someone living or dead, and I got the feeling that he had passed. He told me that when he lost his hand he lost all hope of what he was to do with the rest of his life. He was a man who worked with his hands and he did not see any solution or alternatives to how he was to play out the rest of his life. I remember at this point the thought came to me that in a way this was similar to the issues I was wrestling with. I have had a plan as to how my life was to play out, and it had occurred to me that things may not manifest in exactly the way I had planned, and I was going through the phase of surrendering my plans to the will of the Higher Intelligence.  Very often when our energies are at a particular place, we attract to us energies of others that are similar, and apparently this is what had occurred. I asked him if he wanted to connect with anyone before he passed or send a message to anyone, and he said no that was not the issue. He just needed to express that he understood his mistake. He realized that running away from a challenge was not the answer and that he would have to make it right, perhaps in another lifetime.

I held the energy to him of love and light and acceptance and I felt the Light surround him and then he was gone. Also gone was the pain in my wrist. Also gone was the doubt about my purpose and path. I knew that our lives and our energies are entwined with every one else who inhabits the earth and many times the feelings we have are not always our own. We get sidetracked or stalled when we pick up the energies of others and mistake those feelings for our own. This is a key issue in manifesting our heart's desires: deciphering our own feelings and emotions from those of those around us. It is especially a daunting task to those of us who are empathic.

My purpose in life is to be of service to those, living or dead, who need assistance in their spiritual walk. However, this purpose does not supersede the purpose we all incarnate for, to experience joy. If the first mentioned purpose starts to weigh me down or cause me grief, then I am doing something wrong. It is time to step back and ask myself what do I need to experience joy again. This is why we are here. Sometimes we have to have times to reexamine our lives and renegotiate our paths. And then move forward.

Blessings to my new friend who I just met but apparently has been around for about a week. And now he is on to his next adventure. And I bet he has a hand now.

April 1

As many of you have noticed, March was a quiet month for me. Part of it was due to my holiday in Florida, but, surprisingly enough, upon my return I have not found the mojo that seemed to just scream to me to get my self out there and on paper like I had before my trip. 

Before I left for my trip I had what is called a medicine wheel reading from my shaman teacher, Susan Wolf Star, who was teaching me this new form of getting messages from Spirit, which I will be incorporating into my basket of "things I can do" once I get a little practice. In the reading it was revealed to me that I was in the position of "death" on the medicine wheel. This came as a surprise to me since I was feeling pretty good at the time, but time would reveal the accuracy of this reading. The position of death does not mean I am going to die, but that it was time to let some things go that were no longer life to me. I started by throwing some stuff away out of my closets, and I am still doing that. And cleaning some dead leaves out of the yard, symbolically releasing all those things that once were life to me but now were just piles of deadness that had outstayed their time. I kindly thanked the dead leaves for their contribution in the circle of life and released them to the earth once again, to be reborn in another form.

What I find is that sometimes it is hard to release things that once gave you joy, such as clothes that are outdated or even old cosmetics that you just might use one day. I have a tendency to take them out of the drawers or closets and put them in a box under the house, just in case. It seems easier than the permanency of the county dump.

What I am learning is that it is also that way in the Spirit realm. I have this basket of knowledge compiled over the years, and I have a tendency to hold onto all of it, just in case I might want to use it one day. I hold onto old patterns, old beliefs, old dreams, and keep them all in my "basket" of things I know and things I can do, in case one day the Post Office fails to support me financially and I want to earn a living doing what I love the most, getting messages from Spirit.

What I am learning is, however, that it is time to release things that no longer give me joy. In the physical realm it may be things that I may have paid a lot of money for but never used or enjoyed. In the Spirit realm it may be things that I just didn't "get", even though everyone around me seemed to love. It may be things steal my precious time, but are no longer life to me.

The biggest thing I am learning while I am on the "death" position on the medicine wheel is that if I don't allow things to die that have outlived their time, then they will suffer, as will I. People get stuck in this position by not allowing things in their life that have outlived their usefulness to move on. If we think that our lives have to go in a certain way, and that way is not falling into place, or if it seems like we keep trying and trying to make something happen and it is not happening, maybe you need to let it die.

This seems significant as we move into this time when many celebrate the Easter holiday. Some celebrate the newness of spring, and some remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. In both cases, something had to die in order for the new life to be reborn. It is a process we all have to go through.

Just for today, think of something in your life that may have outlived its time. It may be an old pair of jeans, or it may be a habit, or a way of thinking or behaving. It may be a belief system. If we hold onto things in our lives that have outlived their times, we end up with a corpse in our living room. I remember recently having a dream of grossly conjoined twins, and in the dream I wondered why the mother was so insistent on artificially keeping these twins alive, when they would never have a productive or even conscious life.

Let us set aside those things that are holding us back so that we can be reborn and with joy embrace our lives and our destinies.