Jump Girl

  I have held space as the middleman while children made peace with their alcoholic father. I have shared messages from a young girl of fourteen who took her own life and who wanted her parents to know she was okay. I have shared in love, joy, and sorrow. I have witnessed the beauty and power of death, as well as the tragedy and sadness. Most of all, I have witnessed the healing power that spirit communication holds. I recently did a session for a man whose wife had committed suicide forty years prior. He was remarried and had another family, but he still carried the weight of sorrow her death had created. When his wife spoke to him through me, she said that she had been messed up and had been experimenting with drugs. He had asked her for a separation until she got help. Instead she took her own life. This was why he felt responsible, but she assured him that the decision had been her own and that he was right to tell her to seek help.

  A few weeks after that appointment, he sent me an email telling me that he felt he could finally begin to heal, and he was forever thankful for the role I had played in helping him find wholeness. I was happy that I had been able to assist him in finding healing, but I was also sad that he had suffered for so long. Our beloved dead are still with us, even if we cannot see them and feel them, holding us up when we are weary and trying their damnedest to help us heal after their departure from the realm of the living.

  Once during a deeply profound meditation, I asked the powers that be how I would best be of service to this world, our planet, and the people who inhabit it. As with other spiritually important moments in my life, I sought the solace of the woods for my answers. Such places are my sanctuary; nature is my church. I lay prone on a large rock in the woods, gazed up at the trees, and centered myself.

  As I let my vision grow soft, I noticed a troll-like earth spirit looking down at me from the branches above. The skin on its face was rough like wood, and its tree-like coloring functioned as natural camouflage. It was not beautiful by human standards, but it was friendly and playful. I realized in that moment that the world of spirit and the work I was to do there was not limited to the world of the dead.

  I hadn’t asked my question arbitrarily. I was preparing to marry the earth, to bond myself to her as mate and protector, and the appearance of a nature spirit at that time was not coincidence. The knowledge I sought was pivotal to me because it would help determine the direction I should take as a healer of both people and the land.

  I began to speak out loud, deciding that if I was truly pledging myself to the Goddess, I should be able to do so in front of witnesses. I spoke of how I was aware that we were living in trying times when our actions as humans had gone so far as to endanger ourselves as a species and to cause pain to the earth itself. I asked how I could best help, what my purpose was, where my responsibilities lay.

  The response was clear, like a thought being put into my head by a hundred voices. It was not deafening but rather spoken with the force of a congregation saying “Amen” all at once. I knew the answer was true. My role, my responsibility, was to be a bridge, a communicator between the worlds, an emissary speaking the truth. My job was to help others wake up.

  Part 8

  High Cliffs and Deep Water

  58

  Jump Girl

  I climbed onto the rock face that jutted out over the ice-cold water of the Ammonoosuc River and contemplated the many times I had done so before. I had been coming to this very place behind the Mount Washington Hotel since childhood. It was a place of power for me—the place where I had first faced my own death. To my companions it must have seemed as if I hardly waited at all before plunging into the water below. But there was a vastness that existed in those moments that stretched out through time to every other moment I had stood in this spot and every moment I would stand there again.

  I held onto my intention regarding what I wanted to change in my life. I counted to three and jumped. As my body plunged into the deep pool beneath me, the cold instantly took my thoughts away. I could no longer think of anything, so I was completely open. In that openness my prayer was sent out into the universe; it was the catalyst for my spell becoming the water itself.

  I said earlier that I call such moments “God moments” because I completely let go when my body hits the water. It’s also because of that moment of stillness just after the jump when I’m suspended in the unknown. Such moments are not limited to icy water plunges. They come in many forms as ritualized as walking on fire or jumping a broom, or as quietly talismanic as crossing a doorway. Time is suspended between what we were and what we will be.

  For example, consider how jumping into water is different from wading into the same water. When we jump, we go from dry to wet in an instant, just as when we walk through a doorway we go from one place to another. These are moments of transition and transformation. Decisions fall into this category as well. Once decisions are made, situations change; the results of intentions flow outward like ripples from a splash.

  I have always been a jump girl. I have always made my decisions boldly, and often instantaneously, too. This is one of the benefits of being psychic—knowing what the right choice is and how the decision should be made. That doesn’t mean I always choose the easy road. It doesn’t mean I always choose the “right” road. There is no right road. All roads are right in their way. I would say I choose the most efficient and karmically direct road, the road with the most payoff, the road that best serves my path. It’s as if I’m reading the instructions I left for myself. I trust that I laid out my pattern with jump moments in mind, moments in which a leap must be made

  During a recent soul-level reading, astrologer Marcella Eversole said I could not have charted my birth better for the work that I have to do. Strength and courage are not only a psychic thing; they are also gifts from my father, who taught my sisters and me to be warriors. He taught us that bravery, going forward and holding one’s beliefs as a shield of power, was a mindset more than a physical fighting protocol.

  I have found the spiritual warrior in me whenever I have needed to take action. I step into all that I am in such moments, and I’m the most awake and aware I can ever be. Such moments ring and disperse like a ceremonial bell—timeless, expansive, and radiating in the great pattern that is incarnated life.

  I love that feeling of surrender, releasing myself to fate and seeing where I land—no hesitation, simply jumping. When I come out the other side, I’m different. I’ve been changed by the action.

  If you think about magic in the Harry Potter way, there is nothing overly magical about any of this. If you think about magic in reality, as activated prayer, this is most certainly magic. Harry Potter is just an allegory for the magical element of our lives.

  Magic is simply the will and the way. The will is focusing one’s intent; the way is the means by which one’s spell or prayer is activated.

  I am a creative person, and I want to be part of shaping the world I live in. I have found my way to trusting in the universe, and my life has been better for it.

  59

  Guided by Fate

  We are cocreators of our life and the world around us. We are part of a collective consciousness, the whole of which is God. This collective consciousness is the sum of all beings, so it is fluid and malleable. I see this being, this collective consciousness, as sentient, possessing the ability to manifest in the form of avatars or incarnations of itself; hence the plethora of gods and goddesses since the beginning of time.

  God is everything. The tree outside my window is God, the snow that falls from the sky is God, my cat is God. I am God. As cultures evolve, gods step forward through the creation of our collective will in a form that resembles the culture itself. “God,” the sentient being created by collective consciousness, sends forward an aspect of itself. Jesus would not have worked for the indigenous people of South America or Australia. He was not of them. Nor would Odin speak to the people of the Polynesian islands.

  I have met with deities of numerous traditions through journey
work, dreams, and waking life. Like spirits of the dead, they all communicate differently. One thing they share is presence. Whenever I experience direct contact with an aspect of the divine, there is no doubt that’s what I am experiencing: the literal, indescribable presence of divinity, the real deal.

  I felt the presence of Goddess, the universe in its raw female form, once while doing healing work on my husband. We were in bed and our exchange was tantric, flush with the energy of both sex and healing. I suddenly felt as if my whole body was filled with a gentle golden light and was no longer occupied by me alone. There was another sharing space with me, melding gently with my mind. The being sitting with me was the epitome of femaleness. She was the mother, the daughter, the crone. She was the lover, the healer, the cool embrace of death. She was the earthly goodness of a full bosom, the tautness of the warrior defending her home. She was mother bear and grandmother spider. I reeled with full awareness as her presence settled on the room like gossamer. I did not feel this presence alone. My husband, who is not as deeply connected to spirit as I am, felt it too—the presence of a being far more evolved than he or I. She had not come for me, after all; she was there for him, using me as a vessel. I felt profound humility and reverence.

  I placed my hands on his chest, on his heart chakra, and palpable energy poured through my hands. Tears were running down my face. They were the type of personal dew you emanate while marrying the one you love or watching your child come into this life. These are tears of awe. I was awestruck. My body trembled, and my mind was as vast as the universe itself. It was gone in a moment.

  I do not know how to call forward such experiences. The decision is made by the universe itself. I do not think I am special, that this contact with higher power is limited to the few. However, I do believe it’s more likely to happen to those who believe it is possible. Our beliefs about reality play a significant role in what we’re capable of experiencing. In fact, our disbelief can work like a shield, making it harder for such things to happen in our presence. Skeptics know this without realizing what it is they are experiencing, or not experiencing.

  The moments I have had with God/Goddess/Universe have been shaped by who I am—the girl who spoke to my future self and to spirits through the mirror as a child; the same girl who lay in bed at night talking to God about my day, sharing details with him as if writing in a diary. I am the same girl who had an experience with the Holy Spirit when I was baptized by traveling Jesus hippies. A friend of mine who teaches abnormal psychology uses me as an example when he tells his students, “Some people say they are hearing voices, and they are!”

  Fate is the pattern laid out by myself and woven by the energy of the universe, a work of cocreation performed to help me evolve as a soul and be a part of the greater pattern that is All, which is evolving too.

  I do not believe our every action is laid out in stone. There are things we need to do that are etched deeply into the blueprint of our life. They will come back around again and again until we see them and heed their call. These are the places that are easiest to change, the spaces in between the ripples in the water. It’s pointless to try to change the blueprint of life; instead I focus on how I can make my story more interesting, seasoning the in-between places.

  60

  Working with the Gods

  One of the most amazing things that came from my opening to divinity is this book. Two weeks before I was to leave for the UK on a pilgrimage, I got a phone call from my friend Robert Simmons, the author of The Book of Stones and a well-known crystal worker. A friend of his who was also a client of mine had sent Robert and his wife, Kathy, my way. I ended up doing work for Robert both on a personal level and on a public level when he invited me do a gallery spirit communication session during his crystal workshop, “The Alchemy of Stones.”

  A few months later, Robert called me from New Zealand and told me he wanted to introduce me to his publisher friend Richard Grossinger, who would be visiting Vermont in a couple of weeks. I swallowed hard and felt the familiar feeling of sacral knotting up. I knew as he spoke that something would come of this. Though I had long known I would write a book, I had imagined the book would be written before I met with a publisher. I also imagined I would write instructional books in metaphysical practice, healing, and divination first. But as with most things in my life, I climbed the fence, used the back door, and found my way in.

  I spent a few days with my brother-in-law, Travis, who is a fantasy writer and English teacher. We placed my life events on index cards and came up with a rough sketch of the story of my life. Now here I was driving to a house outside Montpelier to meet with a publisher and talk to him about why my life would make an interesting tale.

  I spent an hour or so talking to Richard, and he was interested in me and my story. What he told me later was that I rang true; he could feel my grounding and the energies and intelligences I tapped into. In his enthusiasm, he wanted to make a Skype call to his publishing house in California so I could speak to someone else there. I had no idea what I was doing or what they expected of me; I just knew I was supposed to be there and I was supposed to let the situation play itself out. The phone rang and rang, but no one picked up. Richard called other extensions at the office, confused about why no one was picking up, given that it was 1 p.m. in the Bay Area. Finally, he gave up on the calls and asked if I could show him what I did and how I worked. By this he meant spirit communication.

  His session was personal and emotional. He had an exchange with his mother, who had committed suicide forty-two years earlier. The session added to his conviction that he wanted to seize the moment of my presence and introduce me to others at his office. His own experience translated to his editor via Skype (he tried again and got through this time), and we had another supporter. I couldn’t help feeling that spirit had been deeply involved in the whole thing, playing with digital devices to keep the call from going through until the time was right. If the call had gone through beforehand, the connection would have been made without Richard’s experience informing it.

  When I had first met Robert Simmons, he asked me what I wanted from life. My answer was simple, without pause: “I want to change the world. I do not believe I will do it alone, but if you ask me what I want, that is what I want. I want to change the world.” When Richard Grossinger asked me the same question, I gave the same answer.

  I often wonder about the details, but I seldom wonder about why I am here. I am on this planet at this time to be a catalyst for change, to open doors in the universe that need opening, ones that have been shut so long that no one else sees them, only the darkness and cobwebs shrouding them. Humanity suffers because of the doors that have been closed. This is not an ego-based thought. I simply know that the world is changing, and it needs spiritual warriors and wisdom keepers to step up and do their part. I am a communicator. I communicate with everything: living human beings, the dead, plants, rocks, gods, otherworldly beings. I am also ever-changing. What is reality to me now was not so ten years ago, and my reality of today will not be the same ten years from now. That is not a flaw. That is the universe. It is big and we are small; or, more accurately, our incarnations are small and must adjust and change continually to accommodate the full vastness shining down upon them. The expansion of consciousness is infinite.

  61

  Queen of Pentacles

  Years ago, when I first began my work with the tarot, I studied many books and booklets, all giving advice on how best to interpret the cards. They were filled with spreads for this and matrices for that, and they talked about how to interpret cards being reversed and the importance of the signifier. The signifier is the card we pull from the deck while shuffling that represents the querent (the person being read). I never really work with such a card, as I can see much more about someone’s personality than a single card can tell me. But I have thought very deeply about what card would represent me, and I’ve often played with the cards to see which one came up the most when I ask
ed who I was. Most often I got the Queen of Pentacles—but upside down.

  I have always felt kindred to this card. The Queen of Pentacles represents someone deeply connected to the world around her. She is prosperous through her own means and is dedicated to bringing fertility to any project she undertakes. She is motherly and protective while leaving room for sensuality and a bit of self-indulgence. She is dark of hair and dark of gaze, and she has the ability to look into what is hidden.

  That I draw this card upside down more often than not does not mean I lack these skills; the tarot is multilinear, not an on-off toggle switch. Rather, it means that for me these qualities transfer to the other world as much as they apply to this world. Like a reflection in a mirror, I exist in both worlds equally.

  One of the Queen of Pentacles’s aspects is that her services and generosity must be sought out. She requires others to stand on their own feet and ask for what they need. I will not approach the living on the behalf of the dead. It is my belief that the living must come seeking the communication. Not everyone is ready or able to hear messages from the spirit world. This does not just pertain to speaking for the dead but also to psychic information I pick up when standing next to a person. In my mind, it’s like eavesdropping and then commenting—totally inappropriate. People need to decide on their own whether they want messages from the dead or the opinion of a psychic.