Our New Store

Not something I’d actually planned on doing, but I am pleased with what shook out as I created an on-line Amazon store for Talking to Spirit. So far, I’ve got it divied up into 3 sections. The first has to do with channeling, spiritual growth and head scratching and motivational stuff. The other sections are for 2 of my favorite writers, Diana Gabaldon and Jayne Ann Krentz. The only thing that sort of bugs me is I’ve never worked with an iframe before and this is 4000 whatzits long. Most of the time it just makes the page longer, but sometimes as you move into a more detailed description of the book it gets used up with reviews and comments. I made it scroll, but that was too confusing. What I’d like is for it to shrink and grow as necessary. I’ll have to keep looking for the solution to that one, but for now: We have an Amazon Store!

For the rest of the day I’m planning on easy things. Clean up some more in the study, do some ironing, make brownies and buy the fixings for dinner. We’re going to have our special dinner today rather than tomorrow because I’ve got to work half a day. I’d like to make schwine schnitzel, but if they don’t have boneless pork chops I’ll get some steaks, pound them out and make us country fried steak instead.

I'm Just Thinking

I’m reading, “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. It’s a small book. It packs a wallop. I recommend this book. It’s making me ask questions left and right.

Bear with me…I’m just thinking aloud.

For many years I’ve been interested in being closer to what I, in the past, called God, and in more recent years have begun to think of as other things in addition to God. This has had a number of names for me and I recognize that there is still, even now, a fluidity with just what that is.

God, Now, Us, Enlightenment, Ascension, Heaven. I don’t know. It’s something different, though.

I can’t think that I’m any different than anybody else. I think of people I’ve come across who talk of being enlightened. What does that mean? For me, I think it means that I would no longer be concerned with many of the things that concern me now, which would actually be a relief. Pain, worry, stress, anger…all that to wash away. How very cool and gee, I wish I could go there.

Love. The guides talk about love all the time. They say it is the glue that binds the universe together. They say there is truth in the saying that love does conquer all, that love makes the world go round. Stuff like that.

What’s interesting to me is that every once in awhile the realization of something bigger than myself, something beyond the boundaries of ordinary life and what makes up my usual reality blasts upon me. It’s sudden. It’s almost overwhelming. Sometimes it feels so good it hurts and I cry, which is a sight because it happens mostly on my way to or from work in the car. Driving along MacArthur Blvd with tears streaming down my face. I hope nobody can see. It’s not like I’m picking my nose. Sometimes I wonder if it is just a stage of menopause. Maybe I just ovulated. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I’m vulnerable. Maybe I just caught a glimpse of Heaven.

Mostly, I think we’re already saved no matter what we are doing. It’s not like we’ve got to jump on anybody else’s bandwagon or religion in order to make it to Heaven. It’s not a race. It’s a journey. You go fast. You go slow. Who cares? One of the guides just said it’s like a dance, too: one step forward and two steps back.

I guess if you want to learn from your mistakes you make an effort to do that. Otherwise you spend 15 lifetimes doing the same stuff over and over again. Can you imagine? Being a victim to somebody else’s rage over and over again? If that was me I wouldn’t like that. I’d prefer to be in a place where I’m happy.

Now, that brings up something to think about too. If you are blessed with enlightenment does that also mean you are automatically happy? Or is being happy like being sad where it’s not really real like what they say in, “A Course in Miracles”? Maybe a sort of medium feeling is what would be best? And, that brings up another point: What is best anyway? Maybe there is no best. Maybe there is different. Maybe there is variety, but good or bad doesn’t mean a whole lot.

Sheesh, it’s like walking straddling a chasm and I’m only on page 10.

Thank You - TheWatchList

I want to say thank you to the Blog Explosion member, TheWatchList, who gave me a boatload of credits! What a really cool thing it was to see an email from BlogExplosion telling me about it. If you happen to zoom through and read this, please know that I really appreciate the gift. Thanks again!

Ask - Channeling

I’m going to turn this over to the Guide in attendance. I’m not sure who it is. But, there’s always somebody there to talk, to say something.

Blessings. In this time of strife and hopefulness of the season, wanting peace and yet living in the midst of strife seems a great contradiction. Generally, at other times of the year you live in stress filled times and are on guard against the “bad” things that come to threaten you. However, during holy days whether celebrated in temples or in churches or mosques the expectation is that other’s hearts will be as full of spirit as your own feel full. Sadly, this is not always the case and you will see tragedies happen, clustering together. A person, depressed with their circumstances, goes over the edge and in seeking ease from the hurt they feel will sometimes lash out around them affecting others in their blaze of glory on their way out and off this plane of existence.

Does this mean you should only be half filled with the spirit of the day? For some this would be the ideal situation, a more mature and responsible attitude to take. We would certainly not count religious in this for they are hopelessly entwined with Spirit and can never come undone to accept reality.

So, during the holy seasons you move closer to a place where Spirit can be a tangibly felt part of your life. You really feel God in your heart for a few hours or days. You open your heart and God, the Holy Spirit, streams in to fill every nook and cranny. And, then, once the holy days are over you revert to your normal hedonistic self. Now, you are cautious again against those who would seek to do you harm.

Sounds off balance to me.

But, the feeling persists that if you give over to Spirit and allow God into your heart that you are leaving your flanks and rear vulnerable to attack.

Think on it this way and see if you don’t begin to reconsider your position. You are not backing yourself into the corner during the celebrations of Holy Days. “Bad” things are going to happen to you and to others regardless of your state of mind. You do not have to be ever vigilant. There is a way to allow Spirit into your life on a constant basis and still fulfill your obligations to the world around you.

Just ask. Just make the invitation. Just make the commitment. Nothing formal. Silently and with your heartfelt voice say, “I’ve been lonely. Sometimes I need some help. I’m tired of doing this alone. Will you be with me? Will you help? Thank you.”

That’s all.

A Year of Psychic Readings

Well, that’s it then. I just spent the entire day getting, “A Year of Psychic Readings” published at http://www.lulu.com/ I’ve ordered a copy for myself and if I’m pleased with it I will make the book available to the public. Yikes, but this project has been a long time in the works. I never could figure out how to get the fonts embedded in the Adobe pdf file. After creating 3 pdf files I uploaded the word document instead and lulu created the pdf file for me. That worked fine.

The plan, right now, is to offer free copies for downloading and folks can purchase a paperback copy for $10 plus whatever shipping they want. They had a bunch of different options and I went for $1.91 for media rate through the US mail. I’m not sure how long it will take, but hopefully it won’t be too long in coming.

What I’m thinking about doing is to pay lulu $99 to get an ISBN and re-publish allowing the book to be available in other places besides lulu.com. Something for me to think about.

Go Stand In A Doorway

I was writing about fear, the lead-into for a chapter of stuff the guides had channeled for my book of 365 Day’s Worth of Channeling when we had our 3rd earthquake in almost as many days. This sucks. All 3 of them located 2 miles east of Berkeley, the first on Dec 20th at 7:15 pm – a 3.5 magnitude, the second last night, Dec 22nd at 11:00 pm – 3.7 magnitude (which DeeDude and I missed because we were asleep) and the third Dec 23rd at 9:20 am a 3.5 magnitude.

These recent quakes were all on the Hayward fault which runs pretty close to my house. Oct 21, 1868 was the last one. And, we’re due. And, I have to admit I’m afraid.

Here’s the conversation I just had with the guides: “So, if this house fell apart and you were killed what would you do?” No brainer on that one. I’d be dead. And, from what they’ve told me I probably wouldn’t care.

“And, if you lost everything what would you do?” I said I’d start over.

Man, but fear can really suck the life right out of you, though.

So, I’ll mull over what they said…and, go get dressed. The thought of having the house fall to pieces around me while I’m in my jammies just doesn’t hold much appeal.

For those who are interested go to: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/ to see the latest quakes in California. More information can be gotten here: http://quake.usgs.gov/recent/index.html

Resolutions

This month’s recommended activity. Honestly, I’m having trouble with this one. I don’t know why. I’ve returned again and again to this smallest section of my newsletter wondering what little interesting something I could put in for my January edition. I’m stumped.

Once, during the course of the month, as I was almost knocking my head against the edge of the desk one of the guides suggested, “On your knees and pray.” I thought that was actually quite funny. There’s one thing they have is an incredible sense of timing for the one-liners they come up with. But, here I am 2 weeks later and I still haven’t come up with anything.

So, I thought I might approach it in a way that is similar to how I am currently trying to fashion some watchbands to go with the watch faces I bought. Just sit down and do it and see what happens.

I know we’ve done breathing and writing was last month. I’ve recommended CD’s and movies and books. In January some people might be concerned with fresh starts and the resolutions they’d made. And, I know how hard it is to stick to a resolution. I’m all fired up about in the beginning, but as time wears on my enthusiasm wanes and eventually I stop whatever healthy or good activity I’d chosen as my resolution.

Maybe because there was no reward for me to do the behavior. Maybe in creating a resolution you also need to create the reward. I haven’t tried that one yet.

Okay…so, say my resolution is to lose weight. Rewards for me, any day of the week, would include chocolate. So, that would suck. What kind of a reward could I have for losing weight? Movies? Books? Clothes? A day off. Yes, I could ask for a day off from work to do whatever I want. But, the deal would be I’d have to lose 8 pounds first. 10 pounds? No, 8 pounds. More than 5 and less than 10. I can manage 8 pounds.

Okay, so what other rewards would be good? I guess I could come up with a generic list of rewards, but, they really need to be crafted for the individual person. It’s the donkey and the carrot routine.

I’ve never once been able to stick to any of the resolutions I make. But, I’ve also never had a reward for good behavior either. Maybe this year it might work out better.

Clickety...Clickety...Clack...Ding!

I’ve always maintained that writers have diarrhea of the mouth. However, after participating in the NaNoWriMo program in November I seem to have gotten constipated. I’m not sure why. It might have been the tremendous effort I made to write and it just plumb wore my sorry little butt out. It might be the next step in my evolution as a writer and what is now emerging from my pen is more refined than it has been in the past. And, it might be I got constipated. I don’t know.

I’m just now sort of emerging from it. For awhile afterward I was concerned that what I was writing to blog about was drivel and that nobody would ever be remotely interested. Also, once I looked at the finished pieces they just seemed so silly and whiney that even I didn’t want to read them.

What happened yesterday was that I was reading blogs at Blog Explosion and I began reading a blog I’ve never read before. Actually, I can’t even tell you the name of it now. But, they were talking about mundane and very ordinary events in their life. I mean this was totally pedestrian. Not super hero stuff. Not shining star stuff. Just ordinary stuff. And, I was totally enthralled. I hung on every word this lady had typed. I was really, really interested. And, that’s when my own log jam finally broke up. So, here I am…back in my hair curlers and fluffy slippers with nothing of truly extraordinary importance to talk about. But, at least I think I’m getting back on track again.

Channeling Funny

I’m working my way through the Battle of the Blogs at Blog Explosion. I’m getting ready to have a look at the 2nd one in a pitched battle and the title of the blog is Living With Multiple Personalities. One of the guides said, “I think you should vote for them.”

I thought it was funny.

Peeking Out From Under My Rock

Last month I really pushed myself to write. Every day I wrote. I also encountered any number of stress filled situations. If I started counting them I’d run out of fingers and start up my arm. But, I didn’t lose my cool…not much, anyway. I realized that I was pushing my buttons with the writing. I realized that as I pushed forward on something that I really wanted to do all the psychological issues that had been lying dormant waiting for the ideal opportunity to rise up and clamor for notice and recognition would realize that the time was right. Typically, it takes a lot for me to attend to my own psychological issues. Looking at it another way my higher self, in directing traffic, decided it was time for rush hour.

When the month was over I ran out of gas. I haven’t been blogging very much. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing. There are any number of entries that I made that as I looked at the finished product I decided to put them into my journal instead. It’s not really that they were any different from any other blog I’d done before the month of NaNoWriMo. Same mundane stuff. Nothing really significant. Just regular stuff. But, I didn’t feel that it belonged here. I didn’t get rid of the entries entirely, I just put it into my journal instead. Private. Buried. Not to see the light of day again. That’s how I am with my journals.

Maybe I just need to go with the flow here. I’m still probably reeling from November. Generally a stress filled time is what the holidays are for me. You’re supposed to be happy. You’re supposed to be full of excitement and being depressed is not allowed. I guess.

One of the guides just said to me, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

The other day I was sitting quietly at work after lunch. I wasn’t reading anything. I’d taken off my glasses and closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. I was sitting at my desk, where I always sit for lunch. Suddenly, from out of the psychic mists came to me a person. A woman. But, she wasn’t real in the sense that she had been a person once upon a time, now passed on and with the Folk in Spirit I talk to. No, she was one of my characters. She was a person who would be in a book I would someday write.

I shuddered with awe. Tears came to my eyes. It was magic. It was a writer’s high and I wasn’t even writing. This was somebody I could get to know and eventually she would tell me her story and I would write it down. It was a pretty incredible experience. I said to her, “You’ll come back to me? We can talk? I can see what you look like?” She said, “Yes. I will come again.” And, that was it. I had to get back to work.

This is what it’s like being psychic.

Believe

This has been on my mind for awhile. I just don’t understand anymore why we have all our strife over religious beliefs. God is God. Period. It doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic or Atheist.

It just doesn’t matter. And, in the end if you don’t believe in God believe in yourself.

Live a good life.

Fruitcakes

I tend to lose track of my bookmarks. There is no real good system that I’ve run across yet that manages them properly. I did a lot of research finding the all time best fruitcake I could find to send to somebody who absolutely loves fruitcakes. So, I made a fruitcake page at my other site - Talking to Spirit.

Cat Farts

Here’s the conversation I just had with the cat.

“Is that you farting? If you’re farting you can’t stay in here.”

“Meow”

“No, I won’t pick you up if you’re farting. Go in the other room and fart please.”

“Meow” and she left….whew.

Remind Me

This isn’t rocket science, but I think it’s important as a reminder. I tend to forget stuff. I also tend to be easily distracted. So, I need to remind myself to do things. Maybe you are wired the same way and might benefit from this slightly.

Index cards. Yes, I know this is sort of really low tech and simple, but they work. If you don’t have 10 of them kicking around in your house go to the store; grocery, drug or office supply store, and purchase a pack of them. Whatever color you desire. They come in basic white and a few pastel colors.

On these ten cards, in pretty large letters, write something you’d like to do. Think of it this way: You go to work every day and once you are there you know pretty much, exactly what you are supposed to be doing. Or, you go to school every day and your schedule is mapped out; you know what you are doing. Do this for yourself.

On the top of each card write something you’d like to be doing. It might even be as mundane as keeping your area clean. That’s what is on one of my cards. I tend to whirl into my study, set myself down at the computer and go to town. Behind me, beside me and in front of me is a mess. I ignore it, but when the focus of my attention loosens from whatever I’ve been doing to become aware of the mess around me I am disheartened. That’s what I don’t need anymore; that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness about my mess. So, pick it up. That’s what’s on my card. Not, “Clean up the study”, because that could take 2 weeks. Instead, my card reads, “Spend 5 minutes cleaning up the study”

Here are the rest of my cards:

* Drink a glass of water now
* Do 10 slow stretches now
* Do your eye exercises now (Sometimes I see double. To force my eyes back to center I focus in on the tip of a pen held out in front of me. I bring the pen closer to my face all the while focusing on the tip and then move it out again a few times every day.)
* Spend 5 minutes walking in place
* Practice 5 minutes of Tai Chi
* Jump and dance around to the count of 50
* Drink another glass of water now
* Smile to the count of 25
* Learn one new word in a foreign language

The rule with me is that I go once through these cards every day. As I finish one task the card goes to the back of the pile and at the beginning of every day the one card (pick up the study) is at the top.

To make it fun and give you some sort of incentive/motivation you could have some of those little stars you could paste on each card as you finish the task or on the top one to show you’ve been through one day’s worth of stuff.

It takes 3 weeks to establish a good habit. With me I think it must take 3 months. But, these are things that I’d like to be doing more often. Maybe you’ve got something you’d like to be doing more too.

Tune Up

I used to charge for readings. People didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that I was spending my time with them and resented paying for anything I didn’t “work” to do. Yeah, like my time isn’t worth something. They also didn’t like what I told them.

Well, I don’t charge for readings anymore. But, I will not ignore pleas for help. And, in the interest of a busy schedule I keep my replies pretty brief and rather to the point. So, when I tell somebody to go see a therapist I am NOT pussyfooting around.

It’s your decision whether you will eventually go or not. But, seeing a psychotherapist can only bring good things into your life no matter where you are in your travels.

Go get tuned up.

Losing Weight Sucks

Losing Weight Sucks.

Heat

Well, I had a premonition the other day. I awakened with the knowledge that our furnace was going to break. And, it did. About 10 minutes later.

It originally broke last March. It wasn’t until about three months ago, or so, that we got a new one put in. The only problem was that it would occasionally make a big KaBoom noise and if the light was dim enough you’d see a flash of light as a fire ball traveled up the length of the furnace. The first time it happened I was walking right beside it. I was so shocked that I crashed into the wall. Good thing I wasn’t holding a cup of coffee.

And, as things mechanical do, it wouldn’t do the KaBooming noise when our landlady or the furnace guy came to look at it. He came one Saturday last month and spent all day with it. I think what had happened was that the KaBoom was strong enough to blow out the pilot light. He got it lit again, but couldn’t figure out why we were having the mini explosion. My thought is that it was some sort of delayed ignition or something like that.

Plan B is that we will go find another furnace guy who can fix it.

Now, my other thought is with the premonition. Though I’m not thrilled that our furnace is not working (DeeDude got us another space heater from Costco, so I think we’re not going to freeze our patooies off), I was thrilled to have had advance warning about it. It was not a random thought. It was a real definite knowingness that it would happen. And, I was not alarmed about it. This, to me, is what being psychic is about. I’d like to have more things like that happening.

Surfing Fine

Last night DeeDude picked up our new Comcast modem and I began the process of installing it. From what everybody said it was a no-brainer. Well. It wasn’t exactly, but eventually the process smoothed out and we had broadband really high speed internet access with Comcast in about an hour or so.

Right out of the box I reached for the instructions which didn’t turn out to be the right thing to do. The first thing it said was, “Connect your modem”. My question was, “To What?”. I read further in the instructions and it got into a bunch of fine print stuff that nobody ever reads (nor did I) and decided I’d better call them. No phone number. So, I went to my computer at the back of the house and via dial up, called up www.comcast.net looking for a telephone number. Nothing. Nada. Zip. They evidently don’t want to talk to you a whole lot. Lots of forums, but the pages were turning so slowly I didn’t want to spend all night trying to figure it out. So, I called 411 and got directory assistance, which also took an inordinately long time to answer the phone. Maybe they’ve been cutting back too.

So, phone number in hand I called up Comcast and was on hold while I took the time to look at all the other stuff in the box. There was this CD that said on the cover, “Feed this to your computer.” I looked at it some. I remembered what people had said that it was all a real no-brainer operation and decided to put the CD into DeeDude’s computer. That’s where the REAL instructions were. So, with pictures and real simple and easy to understand steps it walked us through the hook up process. And, it was pretty easy.

Except, it didn’t work. So, I called Comcast again and this time stayed on the line long enough to talk to a really nice guy who took all of 2 minutes to fix us up. He had to do something technical from his end.

Then, the next step was to get all the computers in the house working. We have the 2 desktops and a wireless laptop. So, I unhooked the modem from DeeDude’s computer and hooked it up to the Linksys router. Then, I hooked the router up to DeeDude’s computer. Mine was still hooked up. Nothing worked. So, I called Linksys and while I waited on the phone did as the taped message suggested and went online to their website. I had to unhook the router and put the modem back on DeeDude’s computer to do this, but once I was there we downloaded some quick hook-me up no-brainer program that, once I’d unhooked the modem and we no longer had internet access, was able to still run and tell us what to do. Step by easy step.

I still wanted a cigarette and a rum and coke….but, not as bad as before.

Finally, the 2 desktops worked and it was time for DeeDude to get his laptop working. I have absolutely no experience with laptops other than I don’t want to use one (I don’t like how the keyboards are laid out or the way the mouse works. Plus, there is the fact that I don't have a lap.), so he took care of configuring that one. The Linksys security key was a gazillion letters and numbers long and you had to enter it 2 times and that was a little stressful, but at the end of it all 3 computers are working now. Very, very good.