Breathing, Knowing, Seeing

The Psychic Way

I find myself looking for deeper involvement in the life around me. It started with consciously and deliberately breathing and smelling the air I breathe. In the cool morning, the air smells fresher than it does in the heat of the afternoon, where, sometimes, it just smells baked. Like the air I breathe has first passed through the oven. I hadn’t thought to notice it until I began to turn more of my focus toward my breath in the first place.

Maybe that is what is needed here. I might begin to fling myself into whatever I am doing, concentrating more totally and focusing on the one thing like the writing I am doing right now.

I believe that we can multitask. Back when I was younger, I could get more done by living that way. But the question then becomes, was I enjoying it to the fullest?

I believe I was enjoying it, but perhaps not to the fullest.

I breathe now this morning air, this cool and fresh air, concentrating on it, and I am overwhelmed by something.

What that is, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I am overwhelmed, and the tears begin to rise.

What would be the purpose of doing that?

I am a self-described psychic now. For much of my life, I did not acknowledge the things I might sense. At first, I thought everybody did that. Then, I learned no, they did not. Sometimes I sensed, but for the most part, I had been taught how to live and grow up normally. Nobody, not one person in my immediate family, encouraged any of us to express ourselves in an artistic manner. My sister and one of my brothers were encouraged in one school, but we lived in many places and were exposed to many teachers. The teachers we loved were, like the others, only there for us for short periods of time before we were transferred to another military posting.

It made us live our lives alone. Both of my parents were also from military families and their upbringing wasn’t much different from ours.

As I began to write, I knew I needed to do more introspective work on myself. How could I even hope to create a character if I did not understand myself?

That opened a whole new can of worms.

Which sounds ugly, but was, in fact, life-changing.

I could not write. I was hopeless. I had no interesting life experiences to draw upon.

I was already a voracious reader and somehow began to be aware of the spiritual lives of other people. My first psychic break was in high school when one day, I was taking a shortcut through the stacks in the library to where I usually spent my time. Actually, I can’t remember where I was headed. What I do remember is that I was in the 200 section of the Dewey Decimal system, which nobody I knew would ever set foot. I mean, we were in high school, and nerds are not known to be popular. Nerds reading spiritual matters would have been so ostracized as to avoid popular students and form cliques with other nerds.

That I was a nerd myself wasn’t something I was aware of at that point.

Anyway, on my way to God knows where in the library, on the bottom shelf in the 200 area of the Dewey Decimal System, a book, a fat book, fell off of the bottom shelf in front of me. I knew in my heart that this was an important happening. It did not frighten me. I just knew I was supposed to pay attention. I bent over and picked the book up. It was the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I read it. For such a fat book, I was enthralled, and I read it quickly. It changed my life. And I did go to the other side of the stacks to see if there was anybody there who might have made that book fall at my feet.

So, here I am, some 50 years later, a somewhat spiritually aware person. I channel now. I talk to my most beloved spirit guide, Seth. I talk to other teachers in spirit. I talk to folk in spirit. I talk to Gilda Radner, who, by the way, the first time I laughed at something she said in spirit, commented, “Well, I guess I still have it.”

Sometimes I am even aware of what animals are thinking. When I go out onto the patio to water the plants, I feel them all being thirsty. I haven’t pursued this because talking with plants is a bit different from talking to folk in spirit or to animals. Besides, I do not have a green thumb and feel guilty about all the plants that have died by my hand.

In my dreams, all of them visit me: the animals, my mother and father, and just lots of people. Before I began channeling, it was always me and whoever was chasing me. The dreams I had were always fraught with danger, panic, and fear. I never ran on flat surfaces, rather, I tried to run through swamps, through mud that slowed me down, never seeming to get anywhere.

The day I learned to channel in 1993, my dreams changed. They are, as now, full of lots of people, lots of dream characters. I remember the first time I had a lucid dream; I was walking through a field of wheat. My hand trailed down into the hip-high stalks and brushed the tops of the wheat. I became lucid at that point and knew I was dreaming. Off in the distance, there were a number; could it have been 25 people in spirit? They were walking on a ridge. I saw them in shadow as the sun was setting behind them, and it showed them to me in silhouette. I jumped up and down, hollering as loudly as I could, with the head of that piece of wheat torn off and in my hand. I knew them to be my guides, all of them, and I shouted in excitement, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” Of course, that is when I woke myself up, but it was the very first time I ever had a lucid dream.

To get me to the point where I could channel, I spent much time trying to become a writer. I read things like Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I listened to a bunch of Tony Robbins tapes doing all of the exercises. I don’t think they offer that particular course anymore, but it was one of his basic courses where you become a better you, a more successful you. I doubled the output of my writing, all of it, still at this point, on a discovery of what it is that drives me, what makes me tick — more introspective work.

That incredible course also was the point where after I finished it, I plunged into a huge depression. We’ve heard it all before: What goes up must come down. I didn’t know that’s what it was, but I understand now. I just tried to grow and heal too quickly. Now, I know what to look for, but the first time is always a very noticeable thing. The same thing happens when you are in therapy though not to that extent because you’ve got a trained therapist to help you make your way. You address whatever it is you think that bothers you the most. You find out how to confront, address and move through the hard lesson and you’re good to go until the next time something pushes your buttons and you find yourself in the land of doo-doo again.

I had thought one series of healing with a therapist and I would be fine. No, no, no. That’s not the way it works. You heal as much as you can at that point in time. You’re okay and good to deal with stuff. Until you aren’t anymore. What I think happens is that’s when your inner or higher self says, “Ah, she’s done well. But now it is time to test her to see if she is ready for the next step of healing.” That’s when you have an accident, or somebody screams at you, or you lose your job, or just something horrible happens.

After I understood, too, that it is not the therapist’s job to heal you completely but to heal you in pieces it made more sense.

Anyway, after that bunch of rambling into what it is like to notice things as a psychic, I think it’s time I spent some more time applying myself to sensing more.

How that might turn out, I will be writing about as it happens.

What do I think might happen? I think I might begin to have more lucid dreams. It’s been a long time since I had one. I think I might be drawn to books about other psychics to see what they have encountered. I might begin to have more lucid reading happening, which I wrote about in this article the other day. Who knows what else might turn up? It’s just time for me to do a little bit more growing.

You know we never stop growing. I’m 67 years old right now, soon to be 68. I know I’m not done. I know you aren’t done either.

Clap, follow, and read some more. I am not about to stop writing.