(From the Reader’s Choice blog  www.yorkshire-press.com.  

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Dear Karen,

Do you have any recommendations regarding some ways to help remember dreams? I am trying to keep a dream journal but I can’t hold on to them long enough to write them down.

Thanks so much! Summer

I think it’s amazing how we shift realities every night and everyone just takes it for granted. We dress for it, and buy comfortable beds to lie on, so our spirits can leave our bodies to dump out the old, learn new things, rest, recover and regenerate. If we don’t do it – we die. Think about it! That’s amazing. You’re saying, I want to remember where I go and what I do. I want to receive guidance from that place so I can have conscious contact, well good for you! If you are longing for it, my guess is that your spirit wants to be more awake in both places. Dreaming is the veil between realities. If you are strongly focused and centered in this one, dreams seem more distant and a little harder to catch.

First, make a decision to remember. Tell yourself when you close your eyes, that you want to remember your dreams, but don’t say it to your head. Breathe into your center and leave your request in your heart. Then have paper and pen by your bed, have them open and ready, so you can begin to write as soon as you feel yourself in the territory between sleep and waking. Write anything you have in your mind, write before you are fully awake, catch a feeling, a color or a vague scene. Don’t judge or censor anything, just spill it out. If you can begin to pull through small pieces, more will follow. It’s like fishing; you get a few nibbles and write those down, then one morning the whole fish shows up.

I’ve read that getting to bed late and being sleep deprived can interfere. I also think alcohol in the evenings can get in the way of remembering. However, I believe that if your spirit wants to speak with you and that’s an acceptable way for you to listen, that it will find a way to be heard - no matter what.

I used to fast every January with the intention of inviting the dream spirits, as a kind of vision quest. They will always come when you make that kind of offering. Fasting will take you into that realm rapidly and you’ll have vivid dreams that are full of guidance within days. Happy Fishing!

I first saw Ram Dass in the late 70’s, when he came to Ohio State University to speak about his trip to India and the ways it transformed his consciousness and character. He spoke about his time as a Harvard Professor, his friendship with Timothy Leary and finding his Hindu teacher.

Everyone is a manisfestation of God, he said, and every moment is of infinite significance.

I had no idea who Ram Dass was and had no expectations. He walked to the center of the stage in flowing robes, closed his eyes and sat quietly for a very long time. It amazed me. How could anyone begin a presentation by sitting down and being quiet?

I was at Ohio State studying dance, theater and women’s literature. I had just finished touring with Hello Dolly and had been well-schooled. Being on stage was about dynamic presentation, articulation, entertainment and projection. How could this guy sit center stage, take a long drink of water and willfully exclude his audience? I was baffled.

He began to talk about consciousness and the freedom in allowing yourself simply to be without doing.

We are human beings, he said, not human doings.

Wow, what would that be like? I was a single mom and the pressures of it made me feel like jumping off the nearest bridge. I got up early each morning; put my son in the child seat on my bike and my daughter on the grown-up seat, while I pedaled standing up. I stopped first at the day care center and later the university. We came home the same way. I worked as a waitress from three until nine, gave all my tips to the babysitter and stayed up past midnight finishing assignments. The next day I did it all again. Easy for him to talk about being and not doing, I thought.

But there was something wonderfully appealing about his gentle spirit, colorful robes and the tranquil glow in his eyes that made me pay attention and want to read his books. A few years later I moved from Ohio to Oregon and decided to try a ten day meditation. I had never done a formal meditation in my life - starting with ten days was not enlightenment, it was pure hell. But I was curious to know who I was beneath my story, history and ingrained beliefs, so I began searching for another way, a way that made sense to me.

What I settled on was sending my kids to their father’s house, while I closed the door to the world and imposed a kind of solitary confinement. I sat and noticed and observed.

When I wanted to bust out of the room, I noticed the feelings, thoughts and sensations around the desire but remained still.

When I wanted to eat food I was not hungry for, I stopped and noticed the desire for comfort, my need to fill my emotional emptiness and soothe the frightened child within.

I spent nearly a month peeling back the layers of my identity, sitting, laughing, crying and writing, looking for and finding the me that was capable of being and not doing. I wanted the personality to ease its fearful grip and allow a glimpse of the divine. I wanted access to the wise woman at my center and was not disappointed.

I saw Ram Dass last night in a documentary called Fierce Grace. He looked vulnerable, frail and broken. He talked about his stroke and what a worthy teacher it was. He cried openly and laughed the same way. The ability to mask his emotions had dissolved; the flow of his language was restricted and withheld. My husband wondered if it hurt his credibility to weep without restraint, but I saw it as one more protective human wall that had collapsed, to further reveal the compassionate spirit within.

Life is a strange and unyielding teacher. Willing or unwilling, we are all her pupils.

We ate lazily, a sun warmed strawberry bursting with flavor for me, a sip of ginger tea for Kim.

Here he is again, she said, placing the chariot card in the center of my tarot reading.

He is still coming, getting closer.

Kim doesn’t read cards for anyone but me, believing she can’t really do it, but Kim can’t read tarot cards the way Michelangelo can’t paint the Sistine Chapel. Her readings have always been spot-on.

I listened getting a little angry. This guy’s been showing up for the past two years. Whoever he is, he’s taking his good sweet time. I wiped strawberry juice from the corner of my mouth, staining my napkin red. Don’t you think it’s odd he’s been showing up in the cards and not showing up in my life…at all?

She didn’t look up, busy placing a second card against golden patterns of grain on the coffee table. Patience is not your strong point Karen, he’s on his way or the cards wouldn’t be so consistent. You know that, you were my teacher!

The two of pentacles was the next card down, followed by the king, then the lovers. 

Seconds ticked, quiet moments as the cards lit in her eyes, revealed themselves and invited us forward. A gaping stretch of unhurried time.

He holds your dreams, she continued. He’s a traveler, well-educated, confident but weary. Looks like there is an entanglement he needs to free himself from first, perhaps another marriage but the two of pentacles, the change card, means he is close now, very close.

There it was, the image of the snake wearing a golden crown, making a figure eight by holding his tail against a purple and blue background. The word change printed boldly at the bottom.

Do you think he’s only a business man and not a partner? I asked, afraid of the answer.

She didn’t hesitate. No, not just a businessman. He is your husband, this will be good for you. Life changing. 

She drained the last drops of tea from her Staffordshire cup, the one I save just for her, wiped crumbs of chocolate from her lap, rose and carried her dishes to the sink.

My shift at the hosptial starts at 5 tonight, she said gathering her ample purse and notepad. I still have to get Dylan from school, so I’d better be off. 

She flung her arms around my waist, gathering me into her feminine presence, the same loving warmth offered to the babies on the lactation unit more than sixty hours a week.

My readings for Kim have been about working fewer hours, resting and the need to integrate her gifts as a singer and harpist into the fabric of her life. You must do more than work, I lecture through the medium of the cards.

Her readings for me have been about patience and good things coming in career and romance. Success is coming, believe it!

Kim and I have both made strides. I’ve had my man tucked into my life for five years now. He makes me crazy, but we’re well-suited. What does that say about me? I’ve given up my ideas of how marriage should be and have learned to embrace how it is.

 Kim is weaving a tapestry with voice and harp these days, as she becomes a medical music-thanatologist. That means she sings and plays for dying patients and their loved ones. Kim is a saint among us. She consistently turns toward the face of suffering and not away, as she opens her big compassionate heart to all of us lucky enough to know her.

When the mailman demanded I come outside to receive a package a short breath ago, I found an orange and black thrush on the ground. It was male by its markings and quite dead. I have many floor-to-ceiling windows that birds mistake for an entrance, bang up against and break their necks. I brought him inside for closer examination. What a stunning fellow he was. The name thrush fell short in holding the splendor of his design. His colors looked like a blazing orange sunset against a black sky; the markings on his wings and collar were intricate. He had grace in his countenance even in death, or maybe especially in death. What a gift to hold him in my hands. I will save him for my granddaughter’s afternoon visit, then we’ll walk down the hill together and bury him.

Last year, while walking the library paths, I saw a Canadian goose flaying in the middle of the pond. Other geese were gathered around making a great ruckus. I feared he was caught in fishing line, so I waded knee-deep in February water to see what I could do. No one else was around. The others flew away as I gathered him in my arms without a struggle. He was gasping for air and panicked. I sang to him and lay his head against my shoulder as I walked back along the paths to my car. I was driving him to the vet when I realized his spirit had gone. He was suddenly cold, heavy and without movement. I pulled the car to the side of the road and wept at being too late to help.

Part of me felt I had stolen property from the park and wondered if I should return him, but decided it would only cause bureaucratic confusion, so I drove him home. I had a marketing meeting scheduled, which I had no time to change for. I brought the bird inside and put him in a basket while we did our business. Anthony, my marketing guy, kept looking over at him the whole time. He was having a little trouble concentrating on business with this large dead Canadian goose staring at him for a full hour; the unexpected is part of doing business with Karen. I took his body down the hill and buried it as Anthony’s car pulled out of the drive.

I believe I was a bird in another life. Birds are my people, my tribe, my feathered friends. I stop to collect their bones and feathers whenever I see them.  Others comment on germs and lack of wisdom, but I will always reach for them, because I remember - and because their flight reminds me of the freedom I’ll have once again after I leave this body.

 I used to do acid once a year, when it was pure and I was open. It felt like kissing the face of God. It elevated me to such a fine place that I was truly one with everything. I never thought of it as a drug. I never approached it that way. For me, it was a point of communion. I took it seriously.

I remember walking in the evening rain in Cambridge. I was barefoot. The rain washed against my face like a lover’s touch. My feet splashed through puddles with the exuberant joy of a ten year old. I had never felt so alive, so present, or so much in the company of all that was divine.

My life had edges around it, but acid removed those.  I  wore my insides on the outside. I was cradled and safe, and led into new awareness’s that beckoned like rainbow colored bubbles, each one their own universe and surprise.

Acid was pure then. I stopped using it when it became laced with less friendly substances. I also stopped because I read that it was the fast track to the face of God, but the visit would be short.  If I really wanted to stay, maybe even set up shop or live there, then I had to learn to meditate. I had to earn my residency.

I have never duplicated those moments, but I remember them tenderly as a place of perspective, enlightenment and grace.

I never tried heroin. My life hung by such a gossamer thread, that I knew it would take me permanently out of this reality, if I opened the door, even a little.

I had a client a few years ago, who was a gifted violinist with the symphony. I tried to help him, to love him, and to hold him here, but heroin held his other hand, and pulled with more weight than I could manage. His death was a sad waste of genius.

How does one heal, prosper and thrive? 

How does one enter the core of themselves to discover the light within?

The essential thing is to find the part of you that is already well, always has been and always will be. To do this you need to rise above the personality and the physical to find the wise woman or wise man that lives within, the one who is just visiting this place, and remains unaffected by external events. Find the part of you that is the child of divine energies, and not human ones. That part has the answers you are looking for. Here is an exercise that might help.

Quiet yourself, relax your body, and imagine sending your energy deep into the center of the earth where it can be held. Rest there, release and allow your spirit to be cradled and safe. Next imagine a light that comes from above, a divine light that knows no boundaries. Allow it to penetrate your physical body, moving through and around, allow it to merge with the energy of the earth. Breathe into the place where heaven and earth meet, breathe into the place that knows that your life is sacred and you have everything you need. This is a physical place in your body. Once you find it, you can go back. This is your place of peace, guidance and power. The most important thing is finding it and knowing it is there. 

The first step in healing for my clients is to feel seen, to have another person view the truth of their essence and hold it with respect and appreciation. The next is to understand the place their soul resides and to know how to access it by themselves.  When you have engaged this place, reality shifts and you stop giving power to people and things outside yourself. You know your inner truth to be greater than anything that exists externally, which allows more peace and gratitude. Learning to trust your inner voice is a formidable task because we have a lifetime of conditioning that directs us to do otherwise. I call this listening to the voice of spirit. If you listen, you will hear, maybe not right away, but eventually.

The logical mind is jealous. It says, no way buddy. I’ve been running this show a long time and don’t want to yield. I’ll do everything I can to get you back if you stop listening to me. This part feels threatened by the shift, so an internal dialogue is necessary. The logical mind needs to be reassured that it will not be out the door, it will just be given a supporting role instead of being the ruler on the throne. The voice of logic will come from the personality, your fears, society, and well-intended friends. It takes tremendous faith, courage and trust to wait patiently when guidance tells you one thing and the voices of logic are yelling, Are you out of your mind? It is a process but the pay-off is tremendous.

The planet is demanding we abandon old structures to make room for new growth, however uncomfortable, a new beginning is about to occur. Stay awake and aware. Don’t get locked in distress or focus on endings. Remain fluid. This time may not be easy, but it will be rewarding. Let go of old ways, it is time to allow change.

Sometimes I want to throw this culture right on its ear!

I picked up the dictionary this morning to check the spelling of clairaudience and read: The SUPPOSED ability to perceive and understand sounds from a distance without actually hearing them.

I continued.

Clairvoyance: The SUPPOSED ability to perceive things that are not in sight or that can not be seen. Keen perception and insight.

I looked up mathematician, which is defined as an expert or specialist in mathematics.  Why doesn’t it say a SUPPOSED expert or specialist in the field of mathematics? What a rip!

Thirteen years ago I wrote a memoir. My therapist asked me to do it. Go ahead, she said, write it all down. It will be good for you, give you insight.

And so I did. I took a year and wrote the whole thing out. And you know what she said when she read it? This is excellent. I’d like you to write my memoir when I am ready. Your book could really help people, and would sell if you’d just take the spiritual parts out.

It has taken most of my life to share who I am with people. I have just listed a few of the reasons why.

The fricken dictionary that informs the whole English speaking culture is giving me a bad rap. This is so exhausting. I read a book about a psychic that grew up in a family that supported and encouraged her skills. What a concept.

In March of 1993, my mother’s husband Joe was dying. I was leaving to teach a morning class when I was stopped by the feeling of a spirit voice trying to talk with me. His photo on the mantel was radiating light, so I sat down, closed my eyes and began to listen. I knew he was in the hospital with cancer and taking morphine to endure. I figured he was in too much pain to stay in his body, so he’d come for a visit. Sure enough, when I closed my eyes his face loomed before me. I’m going to die before my birthday he said. I need you to prepare your mother. We visited and I agreed but felt uneasy with the task. As far as my family was concerned, I had never been employed because my healing work did not show up for them; they had no frame of reference for it. This was going to be tricky. I was also a little angry because Joe himself had often said, I don’t believe any of that stuff. It’s not real, none of it! Now he was asking for a favor. The rejection of my core essence has always hurt, but in all fairness, if I was not living with one foot in the spirit world, I would probably not believe it either.

Joe had two weeks before his birthday. I called my mom to see how she was doing , not sure how to bring the subject up. We were talking about Joe’s condition and his unrelenting pain, when she surprised me. Do you get anything about that, she asked? I wondered what she meant. You know, psychically.  I couldn’t believe my ears. As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say about it, because his spirit came to visit and asked me to prepare you for his passing. He is going to go before his birthday but needs you to release him.  You need to tell him it’s okay to move into the light and that you are ready to let him go. He needs to hear that from you. He also wants you to give something he loved and valued away, to move it out of the house. You can decide what that is.

She listened and when we rang off, I felt a sense of personal healing at being allowed a conversation that would have been otherwise impossible. Joe’s birthday was on the 8^th and he died on the 3^rd. I returned home as requested and stayed close to my mother to comfort her. As usual she did things right, with no detail overlooked. Always stately in her approach to life, the gathering reminded me more of a coronation ceremony for a queen, than a funeral. People greeted her, handed her roses and bowed their respects and regrets, friends were in abundant supply.

That’s the story of Joe, but if old Mr. Webster comes calling, I’m going to make him look up the definition of Eating Crow, (to undergo the humiliation of having to retract a statement, admit an error). I’ll require a few revisions in his reference books.

What if the only life you had depended on someone picking you up and taking you out of your box? What if you had no capacity for life on your own, but when you were put in the skilled hands of another, you could bring audiences to tears, cause roaring laughter and see them spring to their feet in appreciation.

We wrote original scripts in a studio just over the river in the state of Washington. As an educational theater company we were the welcome reason children left their classes to experience the wonder of Japanese Bunruku, shadow and hand-rod puppetry. We performed from Oregon to Alaska for children young enough to be mesmerized by the magic of make-believe. 

It was my job to provide movement, character and voices for three or four puppets at a time, while a male touring partner did the others. The children energized the performance with rapt attention, laughter and wild applause. It was exciting to see how completely the children stepped into another reality, accepted it, and became the moment. For example, we had written a show about a coyote getting stuck in a cedar tree, but had to revise the scene when I said as the voice of coyote, I seem to be stuck in this tree. Is there anyone who can help me get out? That line was supposed to announce the entrance of a Native American, but to my surprise three hundred children rose from their seats screaming, I can help you coyote. I’m coming. 

The puppets were nothing more than fiberglass, fabric and wood, limp in my hands, but in front of an audience they were alive and vibrant, as if the truth of them resided solely in shadow. I became their midwife over and over again, birthing them into existence at each appointed moment, than placing them back inside their long coffin-like traveling boxes after each exhausting exposure.

This was a mind-bending experience, and enough to make even the most realistic among us pause. In performance the life of the puppet became legitimate, played out against the darkened room of the stage, while I watched the shadows on the wall, as another reality, another kind of life, played out next to the one we intended. Was this a kind of karma, or gift for those not ready to move fully into life? Was it a skillful birthing of spirit while hiding in illusion, a sort of trying out life before actually showing up? I don’t know. I just know the chills I felt every once in awhile, as I watched it all play out.

Vendors were handing fresh strawberries to pedestrians on street corners to celebrate the first day of spring, as I wove through busy intersections on my way to work. Ocean air was tangibly fresh and salty, and drew my eyes to the harbor. The pacific skyline was filled with giant orange cranes hoisting containers on and off railroad cars, as tug boats with blue roofs, white framed windows and bright yellow hulls pulled barges in and out of dock. Waterfowl played above the cool waters that lapped against the shore, incoming fog shrouded a distant beach.

I took a short cut through serpentine streets, as they descended through well groomed neighborhoods, past banked rhododendron hedges and white azaleas. Mt Rainier filled the horizon, as I eased into downtown traffic and finally to a parking place.

I was doing readings in a restaurant during happy hour to make extra cash. The uncluttered white walls and subtle curves of the restaurants’ interior had a calming effect. It was unpretentious and relaxed. I made my way to the long bar in the lounge and settled in under sepia toned lights. Happy hour had begun. Cozy wooden tables were already filled with conversation, cocktails and the energy of letting down after a busy day.

I moved to the coat rack and hung up my purple jacket. I wore purple high heeled shoes with a matching skirt, and a green silk blouse. I was in my purple phase. My hair was gathered and twisted away from my face with a decorative hair stick, emerald-like gems cascaded from each ear. I slipped a fake wedding ring on my hand to avoid propositions, and looked around the room to see how many numbers had been placed on tables. I was happy to see I had very few.

My first customer defined the word gentleman. He had white hair, wore a three piece suit, lavender shirt and soft yellow tie. A bright red handkerchief sprang from his left breast pocket. His face was narrow and intelligent, his eyes deep brown. He flashed a smile that was both tender and curious as I walked to his table. Extending my hand, he shifted a glass of white wine between long artistic fingers, until his right hand became free to meet my own. I pulled out a chair and sat across from him.

So, you’re the card reader, he said, My friends have given me amusing reports of your talents. I thought I would see for myself.

Amusing? I questioned.

You seem to have a skill that is insightful and yet based on chance. I understand your readings are accurate. I find that curious, amusing and improbable.

I liked him immediately, and decided to begin reading. You’re a man who has become successful by using your wits, I told him, but I see decisions being made just as often from your heart, a desire to be fair in all things and most importantly, an active intuition. What I do, is not so different from what you do. You define your abilities as hunches or gut feelings, but it is the same wisdom. You are better than most at knowing who to trust, and what deal to back away from. That is not logic, but the feeling that informs wisdom. We operate in the same way, so you must be amusing as well.

Fair enough, he said. Can I buy you a drink?

Music played in the background as the bartender scurried from one customer to the next. I was grateful for the quiet volume of the music, because Saturday night’s bartender preferred a louder variety of popular music and cranked up the sound. On those nights I went home with a headache after screaming my readings above lyrics about a Pink Cadillac.

I don’t drink, I told him. Odd isn’t it? A card reader who works in a bar and doesn’t drink. Thanks anyway.

Are you morally opposed to alcohol?

Not at all. My body just won’t accept it. It makes me feel ill. It’s the same with coffee. I might as well drop acid as drink a cup of coffee.

He smiled, but I could tell that my last remark made him uncomfortable. I was immediately sorry I’d said it. I didn’t want to give him the idea I was a drug head. He was already taking a risk. He looked at me with penetrating deep brown eyes that held such intensity, that I began to wonder who was reading whom.

You are a curiosity to me, he said kindly.

That makes two of us, I replied. I am a curiosity to myself. If you figure me out, let me know. I’d appreciate it.

He laughed and our connection deepened. The waiter came over to see if he wanted more wine, but was waved away.

Alright, he said. Let’s see what information you glean from those astounding cards of yours. He shuffled the deck like a man used to playing poker, then handed them back. I began placing them on the table when he covered my hand to stop me.

You don’t need these cards, do you? he smiled. Can you read for me without them?

Of course, I said, I already have. The cards just make it quick and easy. I like to use them because they give my customers visual images to go away with, which most people remember longer than words. I can do it with or without the cards, I  repeated, which do you prefer?

All right, he said, turn them over. We had entered a contest driven by his curiosity. I turned over The Emperor, the Five of Pentacles and Ten of Pentacles. The symbols on the cards have a way of lighting up for me, so I can understand which aspects of the card holds the most importance. The face of the Emperor filled with light, the cane pictured in the five and the coins of the ten. I began to read:

I see another white haired man in the card of the Emperor, a close friend, someone with fullness of face and a more casual approach to both attire and his work life than you have. You share conservative views and a long history.

My eyes caught the figure of a man, leaning on a crutch in the five of pentacles. He is pictured outside on the street, as if kept away from the good things he desires.

I’m thinking your friend is in poor health right now, and that you are concerned for him. There is respect in the friendship that has been built on years of trust. He is going through a difficult time and you want to help.

My eyes moved to the ten of pentacles, a card filled with money and images of family.

He’s been a friend for so long, you are almost like brothers. I’m thinking that you share a business life, and that you are very affected by his suffering. The cards show recovery and a return to prosperity, so I wouldn’t worry.

He confirmed my reading and sat in silence. I had a sense that he lived alone, while his friend enjoyed both wife and family.

Has your wife died? I asked. He nodded and I felt an accepted loneliness he no longer questioned.  I envisioned him raising from his bed in a well-ordered house, and going into a drawing room, where he sat by the window enjoying strong morning coffee and the New York Times. The table’s companion chair remained empty, as a reminder of his wife’s absence. In the evening I saw him going to a dimly lit study and settling into a leather armchair with a half finished book. The patterns and traces of his life invisibly defined and seized him in a way that had become unnoticed.

We talked casually for a few moments before I excused myself.

I’m sorry for your loss, I said, referring to his wife. He smiled in return, Thank you. I appreicate the information about my friend. I returned his smile knowing that it had not been the information about his friend that had brought comfort, but a sense of being truly seen, heard and understood without judgment. It’s not perdictions we crave, but soul recognition. I collected my fee and moved to the next table.

 I glanced over at the next numbered table and saw a balding man with glasses in a brown cotton shirt, sitting next to a much younger woman. They were draining the last drops of Belgium ale as they pushed back their chairs to leave.

Sorry, they said, as I approached. We’re running late and have decided to move on.

I was glad for the break and headed toward the salad bar to fortify myself for the evening ahead. I was sprinkling blue cheese and olive oil on a plate of greens when Julia walked in.

Oh good, she said, You’re back. I want a reading as soon as you’re done eating. It’s very important.

Julia was a tall thin attorney whose wallet overflowed with hundred dollar bills. She slipped off her white business jacket and settled in a corner table with her friend, Jan. Julia liked white, the way I liked purple. She looked chic and Barbie doll like in linen. Silver bracelets rattled on her right arm, and black and white sling back heels graced her feet. Her best friend, Jan, was her opposite. Jan was tough, liked wearing heavy boots and jeans, chain smoked and rarely smiled. The waiter delivered the usual salt-rimmed margarita to Julia, and a gin and tonic ’straight up’ to Jan.

Here we go again, I thought, cornering stray pieces of arugula with my fork and hurrying the last traces of salad into my mouth. The bartender inspected a glass in the overhead light, frowned at specks of dust, and polished it clean with a bar towel. He nodded his head in Julia’s direction to indicate that she was my next client, then smiled, knowing how frustrated I felt after reading for her. We shared a moment of silent understanding, before I took my dishes to the clearing cart and went to the table.

Jan never stayed for Julia’s readings, That woman freaks me out!  True to form, she excused herself as I approached, pulled up a nearby stool and settled into more comfortable conversation with the bartender about politics and economics.

She wanted no part of Julia’s “woo- woo – personal growth experience,” and had no idea how someone with a rational mind could believe such non-sense, let alone pay to hear it. The bright flame of her match was replaced by the glow of Jan’s next cigarette, as blue smoke drifted into the air and encircled her head.

            Oh, Karen, Julia said, with positive excitement. I want to read about Karl. I’ve just met him and we have a date this Friday. She held up a picture torn from a magazine of a stocky Lebanese man with olive skin and spiked dark hair. He’s a chef, she continued, a famous chef.

I mentally fortified myself as I sat under the  glow of the wall light and examined her photo. Let’s not read about this guy tonight, I suggested. How is your work going?

She gave me a puzzled look and began fidgeting impatiently with her napkin. I have a big case pending, which you know, and have to travel again next week for another deposition. Work is fine. I want to talk about Karl, she repeated, moving into her forceful attorney mode.

Julia always wanted to talk about the next man, but I could no longer indulge her. She was radiant in her excitement, but my obvious reluctance stopped her in mid-speech.

I can’t do this anymore, I confessed, because the men are not the issue. They’re a diversion. For me to continue reading about each new man is a disservice to both of us. I think you know that.

A look of cold despair crossed her face, an unsettling sense of delusion. She began to lobby me once more. Julia did not allow herself to think of her past, although it festered in the depth of her soul. She wanted to focus on external relationships and staying in control, the very qualities that made her a excellent attorney.

This man is different, she continued. I’m sure he’s the right one.

I was unyielding, knowing from experience that she would become rapidly suspicious, jealous and finally cold toward him in a few short weeks.

When Julia came for her first reading a year ago, I was surprised by her past. She was a frightened child whose mother valued material things and worked excessively to acquire them. Her father had abandoned the family at an early age. In their absence, Julia looked to her uncle to provide the love and connection she needed. When she was in elementary school her uncle disappeared, and she was the one to find his body. He had killed himself a week earliest in a small trailer and the body had decomposed in summer heat. In a moment of unguarded vulnerability, she described the overwhelming smell that came from the trailer, and the sound of buzzing flies that blanketed the screen door.

Julia could not allow love in her life, as much as she craved it, because she believed it would end in abandonment. She knew she could not stand a repeat performance of loss, so she abandoned the men in her life first, before they could abandon her. Her friend, Jan was a reflection of the tough person she wanted to be, but could not achieve.

Julia gave me a ‘what am I paying you for,’ look and continued. Please, just put the cards out. I need to know.

I put the cards away and restated my message, It’s time to address this issue at its core, I said gently. You need a good therapist. You have post traumatic stress, and no man is going to fix that.

But, she continued, if I can’t talk to my psychic about these things, who can I talk to?

A therapist or a shaman, I repeated. This is not for your psychic, Julia. See someone else.  She pushed her chair from the table, paid her tab and went away.  I had no doubt she’d come back another day with the same questions about another man. 

That evening, I did readings about impending legal battles, custody cases, internal political disputes and for a secretary who believed she was being stalked. I even read for a woman persistent enough to have tracked me from the television station to the restaurant.  Her face was especially sad. She wore loose knit clothes over a large framed body and had deep lines in her face that showed years of stress and toil.

As she and I sat together, it became clear that she was looking for future predictions of the National Inquirer type. She’d come for a reading because she wanted her future told, without taking responsibility for anything it might hold. When I repeatedly brought her back to a path of action and accountability, she recoiled. In the end, she threw down her money and left saying, You’re nothing like you were on television!

I smiled to myself as I packed up my things.  I guess that was my worst fear, to have someone tell me I’m horrible at what I do, but because of the painful place that birthed her comment, I didn’t take it in. To be read for, a person needs to be open to being seen, and to the possibility of new thought, which requires the courage to change.

I was relieved to finish work when I packed up my things and headed for the door. My thoughts were racing from the people I had seen and the energies taken in.

The lights of Seattle shown on downtown office buildings, as I pushed open the door and stepped outside.  The night air teemed with the wet, green smells of marine life, as I stopped to breath the cool night air, trying to be more present, trying to release the visions and stories I had so intimately held. The bobbing procession of tug boats and fishing fleets were at rest under evening shades of purple and pink, as I cut through alleys that led out of downtown and back up the hill to Mt Baker. I was grateful for my car, but missed visiting the salmonberry, quince and little violets I once walked past on my way to the bus. The lights of downtown faded with each mile I traveled, and the maple lined boulevards skirting Lake Washington rose in the headlights. My little Datsun wound around residential streets until it came to rest in front of my storefront perched at the crest of the hill.

 I held the energies of my clients too strongly to go to sleep, so I went to Rip’s market to pick up the evening paper. Rip and I were visiting about our work days, when a man from the neighborhood burst through the door, pulled a gun from the folds of his jacket and handed it to Rip.  Here, take this, he said. I just shot my wife. Better call the police. 

 Seattle was a city of extremes and it was taking a toll. Some mornings I would stand in a welfare line to receive free rice and cheese, and the same evening dine on pheasant in the wealthy homes of grateful clients on ‘millionaire hill.’ I felt myself being ripped apart by the intensity of Seattle’s urban environment, and decided it was time to move back to Portland.

Every year Boeing Aircraft invites psychics to come and read for their employees. The aircraft company is a quick drive south from Seattle on Interstate 5. Acres of new planes can be seen along the freeway, lined up on Boeing field waiting for delivery. Inside the main building, we post our photographs with a brief description of what we offer in the lobby.  Employees pick the person they’d like to see, put their name on a waiting list, then enter with questions that fall into categories which include love, money, health, family and business.

The reading room itself is large and warehouse-like with tables placed in rows. Some thirty psychics with various skills offered service. It was a marathon client week-end that paid well and provided a catered lunch. I brought a table covering, business cards, some favorite stones and plucked a single red rose from the twelve near my bed.

One of my first clients was a young woman who had recently lost her father. She came to inquire about including his spirit in their Christmas holiday. She was looking for a ritual, although she did not know how to put her request into words. I remember this reading especially, because it was an instance when I got sidetracked and momentarily betrayed myself. To answer her question, I closed my eyes and waited for images. The scene that appeared showed the family pulling an empty chair, his easy chair, into an intimate circle near the tree. Then I saw the young woman placing a fisherman’s cap on the seat. But as I began to deliver the information my mental sentries jumped forward. I always see them like little soldiers with rifles on their shoulders, red uniforms and tall black boots. It is their job to discredit the information that comes from the realm of spirit, because they work for the mind. They are employed by all that is rational and concrete.

Hey, they say, What’s this doing here? This has no worth. We didn’t approve this? They stepped forward at the very moment I was delivering my message, grabbed the information about his cap and pulled it away. This is too specific, they said. Do you want to look like a fool? What if they don’t have his hat? Be safe! Be careful! Be general! Replace that word. Use the word garment instead. Then you can’t get into trouble. Why get into trouble?

The censors had me in their grasp and had reworked my delivery so quickly I barely knew what had happened. I would recommend, I told her, making a circle near the Christmas tree, include his favorite chair and place a garment on it. Use something that belonged to him and felt special.

She looked at me, clearly pleased. Great! she said. We’ll do that. I can put his hat on the chair. We still have his fishing cap.

I am better than most at keeping the sentries at bay, but every once in a while, when I least expect it, they take me down. 

The other reading I remember from the 40 short readings I must have done that week-end was for a young woman about to be married. She was having nightmares and irrational fears. She wanted to marry in her husband’s faith, but something inside her would sabotage the meeting each time they were supposed to enter the sanctuary. When I asked spirit for information, I found a vivid past life. I saw her seated outside a temple in a country with a dry climate. People were wearing flowing silk robes as they entered a tall building. It was her job to wash their feet before they entered. The building was a holy place. She knelt by the entrance doing her job as they prepared to enter sacred space.

I think you had a job washing people’s feet outside a temple in a hot place like Egypt, I told her. It’s something you did every day. It humbled you and irritated you at the same time.

Oh, she interrupted, I hate peoples feet. I am so funny that way. I can’t stand to look at them and even feel that way about my husband’s feet. They repel me.  I tell him when we are in bed to keep his feet on his own side of the bed.

In that lifetime you were not allowed to enter the temple, I continued. You have a soul memory of that, even though it has been unconscious, it is still powerfully in place. That belief is keeping you out of your husband’s church. Talk with yourself and make a clear distinction between now and then. It is time for you to enter the sacred space of your marriage. You get to enter the temple now. You get to be happy and walk at his side.

She was visibly relieved but still curious. What’s a soul memory?

A soul memory is an unconscious knowing that we carry from one lifetime to the next, that can affect us profoundly. We may not be able to bring it forward on our own, but once it comes into awareness, there is always a deep and settling recognition of the truth it holds. Uncovering and embracing that knowledge brings freedom. 

At the end of the week-end, I gathered my belongings, and noticed that the rose on my table had turned color. I held it to the light in disbelief. Must be the lighting in here, I told myself, carefully packing it away. But when I got home and returned the rose to the vase, which held it’s original family, I was struck by what had happened. The rose had turned from vibrant red to a deep shade of purple. The only explanation was that the spiritual energy of 30 psychics had absorbed in the water and again in the rose, turning it the color of the crown chakra, which was the energy center we were all using.