Conversation With a Psychic

My only friend in the state

I have known my friend Pat for around twenty years. We first met back in the mid-1990s when I owned and ran a small bookstore up in the mountains of Colorado. Pat was living in Taos, New Mexico then and she and her man of the time often took weekend trips up into Colorado for adventure and shopping. She came into my bookstore one day and we struck up a conversation that is essentially still going on twenty years later.

Pat is a psychic — and a very good one. Back then she worked as a professional psychic. For a while she worked for one of the big national psychic hotlines but she became extremely frustrated with that and quit. “Psychic readers have been turned into a commodity by corporate greed and I won’t have anything to do with that,” she has said on numerous occasions.

Even though she no longer does it professionally she is still very psychic. She has blown me away far, far, far too many times for there to be any doubt in my mind. When I speak with her there are no thoughts that I can hide from her because she will always pick it up. With her I can only be 100% honest.

Although my bookstore was a general, full-service bookstore I had an inordinately large “New Age/Metaphysical” section. I had fantasies of only carrying new age/metaphysical books but that never would have paid the rent. Besides, my book addiction goes far beyond any specific genre. Pat, however, was only interested in the new agey stuff. She bought a lot of books but she would always call me first to pick my brain on what was the latest and hottest and most intensely resonating releases. Eventually she just called to talk. She said that it was such a joy for her to talk to a fellow ‘light-worker’ who knew what they were talking about.

Back then I had no problem with the term, “light-worker,” but now I cringe a little whenever I hear it. It is one of so many new agey buzzwords that became so very over-used that it became cliche and bereft of true meaning. Everyone and their mother who were seeking to capitalize on the new age market called themselves a ‘light-worker.’

After a few years Pat left her man and her lovely adobe house in Taos and moved to Northern California. We continued talking on the phone once or twice or three times a week. And we would often talk for hours. It seemed we never ran out of things to talk about.

After only a couple of years in Northern California Pat moved to Nebraska.

“Why the freaking, holy hell, would you move to Nebraska?” I asked her on the phone.

“Well, as you know Nebraska is where I grew up. It’s where I went to school and went to college. It’s where I got married the first time. Back then, all I wanted to do was leave Nebraska and go out and see the world. Well, I’ve done that. I’ve lived all over the West. I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve been to China, to the Amazon rain forest, to South Africa, all over Europe, Australia…. I’ve schmoozed with the rich and famous when I lived in Southern California, I’ve skied with celebrities in Taos, I’ve climbed the Mayan pyramids in Mexico, I had my purse stolen in Cairo on my way to see the Giza pyramids. I’ve smoked hashish in Amsterdam. I’ve seen shows on Broadway and attended native powwows in Hawaii. I’ve done it all — or at least enough — and I’ve come full circle. It’s time now for me to go home.”

“To Nebraska?”

“Yes, hey it’s not such a bad place. The people are good people. And I’ve got family there. Hey, I’m getting old and Nebraska is a great place for that.”

I felt sad for her and happy for her at the same time. What I didn’t know at the time was that just a few years later I would end up moving to Nebraska also. We now live just a couple of hundred miles apart from each other; roughly the same distance that first separated us when we lived in Colorado and New Mexico.

While my daughter and her family live in Nebraska, they are family. That’s different. Pat is the only real friend I have that lives in the same state as I do. Although she came to visit me once it’s still a long-distance telephone friendship. And we still talk on a regular basis.

“White Feather!” This is how she answered the phone when I called her last week. This is how she always answers the phone when I call her. Like me, she does not have a cellphone. She swears that she does not have Caller ID on her phone; the same phone she’s had for the last 20 years. But she always knows that it is me calling.

Whenever she calls me I get up from my desk to go into the other room to answer the phone. I happen to have Caller ID but I always know that it is her before I ever make it to the phone and see her name on the little screen on my phone. I can be psychic, too.

We talked about a lot of things and eventually the same subject came up that has so often come up in our phone conversations over the last few years. That subject can be summed up with the question, “What the hell are we doing in Nebraska?”

For the last few years Pat has spent a lot of time on the internet doing searches for real estate in New Mexico, Colorado and California. She desperately misses mountains and dry desert air and adobe and an open-minded progressive (and more new agey) prevailing mass consciousness.

Just like me.

But last week she told me that she quit doing that, “I’m not searching anymore. As you know, my daughters and their families live in California and I’d like to be closer to them. And I miss the mountains so much and…. well, you know all the reasons. But I finally gave up. I have come to fully accept the fact that I’ll be living here in Nebraska for the rest of my life.”

I gasped and cringed.

“Now White Feather, that doesn’t mean that you’ll be living here forever. You’re still young — at least compared to me. There’s no telling where your path will lead you.” (Pat is in her seventies now and I’m not quite there yet. She is the only person in the world who calls me young. How can I not love her?)

“Oh God I hope I’m not stuck here forever. When I first moved here I gave myself two years max to live here before I moved on to a better place. Now, six years later I’m still here. I feel trapped. The thought of moving to a better place is what sustains me. That hope is what enables me to get up in the morning.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But while you’re here know that you’re here for a reason. You and I are both light-workers and maybe we’re here in this godforsaken place to anchor that light energy. We’re here to uplift the vibrations. Did you just cringe?”

“Yes. Pat, I know what you’re saying. But it seems like punishment to me. What did I do to deserve this seemingly hopeless and miserable task of being a light anchor in such a dark and desolate and lonely place? Is my purpose really that bleak? Am I paying off bad karma?”

“Karma may be involved somehow but do you know why you’re so miserable about it? It’s because you’re fighting it. Give up the fight. Surrender. Then, and only then, will your path open up.”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Of course she was right. She was almost always right. She wasn’t telling me anything that I already didn’t know but it was good to hear it coming from her.

After a long moment of silence I changed the subject, “So Pat, what is your official psychic impression of who the next president of the United States will be?”

“Well, I can tell you straight away that it won’t be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.”

“What? Uh…. so…. uh, will it be Jill Stein or Gary Johnson?”

“Oh gosh no. It will be neither of them.”

“So…. uh, who’s it gonna be?”

“I don’t know. Everything is so tenuous right now. We could suddenly go in any number of different directions. We really are at a tipping point. I just don’t know who the president will be but I know for certain that it will be neither Clinton nor Trump.”

“Wow.”

“White Feather, as you know, I am an eternal optimist. You’re one, too, when you’re not brooding about something. I have complete faith that whatever happens will be for the best. I know it looks really bleak right now but that is because the veil is being lifted and we’re seeing the intense corruption that has been hidden for so long. The old ways have to fall away before the new ways can take hold. And they have to become apparent to everyone before they fall. The veils are falling away revealing all the ugliness for all to see. It may seem bleak but it is a very, very good thing. We all have to remain strong and continue holding the light….”

It is apparent why I just love my psychic friend Pat. Nothing ever gets her down. In twenty years I can’t recall a single thing that ever truly got her down — and she’s had some harrowing experiences. She’s amazing.

After our phone conversation I felt somewhat elated. I went to my window to watch the sunset. The thought of neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump becoming president filled me with optimism and joy. As spirit followed the sun in a westerly direction I could feel an upcoming sunrise that would someday soon shine on a better world.

And then slowly my thoughts eventually drifted to the burning question of why the hell I was living in Nebraska……