An Explanation and Some Life Notes

This will not be, strictly speaking, a biography of my life, but rather an explanation of what I do and some information on how I came to be able to do the work that I do.

It is very difficult to put in words what I do. I seem to have the ability to mesh with another person's life guidance and then describe or convey that unique information to the person. I call these guidance energies Spirit. It could also be called a connection to the Great Unconscious, Buddha energy, The Holy Spirit, Love, The All, and any number of other terms. Regardless of what you call it, it always, always feels the same. It is like stepping into an immense space. It is a great big beautiful soup that, on some level, we are all part of; we are all joined to one another and this connection we all have with each other comes from the core that we all have within. When words or visions come through me connected, they have the quality of goodness, a kind of goodness that is indescribable. There is no judgment of any kind. There is only unconditional love and understanding. When words or visions come through me and connect to a particular person's life, those words, regardless of how that person is living their current life, originate in this sea of goodness, love and understanding. So regardless of what is happening in a person's life at any time, the guidance, the words & visions, is given from this loving supportive environment. In my experience, there has never been blame, there is not criticism, and there is only help.

My perception of this environment, where the words & visions come from, is that no language exists there. Ideas and thought seem to be fully formed, not in a linear state. For me, it is like looking at a piece of information that I can only liken to being three-dimensional. It's hard to communicate exactly what happens and for that reason, I have been given an energy that serves as an interpreter. This energy takes this "chunk" of information and breaks it into sentences, or visions, or examples to help illustrate what needs to be conveyed and it moves through me and becomes language as I speak to the person. I think of the energy as female, and this energy feels as though it has been with me for all time. Why a female energy? I have no idea. I know she guides me, protects me, contributes to my training, and works as the interpreter for a person's session. Some times I sense her going through my brain as though it were a Kardex picking words, discarding them, searching for the perfect word and then I can hear it come from my mouth.

I am often asked if I experience negative energies. No, I do not. I have experienced energies I did not want to be around and separated myself from them. It is as simple as that. Occasionally, I have seen people who have attached themselves to negative energy and begin to change their lives to to accommodate the negative energy. In these circumstances, simply meeting with the person and explaining what they are experiencing will allow the person to detach from that energy and move toward a more loving life experience.

How did this ability come about in this life? Did I wake up on day and suddenly have this gift to work with people in this way? Yes and No. I believe it was always with me, standing just off to the side if you will. There were times throughout my life when this ability presented itself to me - when I was 10, when I was 16, in my 30's and then finally it seemed to become fully present in my early 40's. At 10 my mother became very ill and I remember praying for help and being aware of this voice in my head telling me how to handle the situation. I really didn't think it was odd that there was a voice in my head; I had always had conversations with myself but this time it seemed a stronger presence. I never discussed it with anyone, I just assumed everybody had the same experience; that's how children think. I didn't feel special or unique because of these conversations but I did feel like I didn't belong. It was difficult to be in groups or in crowds, it was chalked up to being "shy." I felt as though I had a foot in two worlds.

By the time I was 16, the voices became louder and more persistent, and I knew people did not have conversations with voices in their heads. That was the time I begin to set up a system for "passing" in life and that was in place for decades. Around this time, I also began to experience periods of disconnection from the world that seemed to mimic Petit Mal Epilepsy. I would suddenly feel my eyes roll back in my head, my eyelids would be closed, and I could not speak. I also had tremors. Many medical tests were conducted and everything came out normal. My experiences could not have been explained medically. And then seemed to stop after a short period of time. During my first year in college the seizures came back very strongly. The college doctor prescribed small doses of morphine. By this time I was having flashes of light and color and not knowing what to do about it all.

Well, I found a solution. I found that if I drank alcohol the voices would stop or be diminished and I did not have the disconnected state I had been experiencing. In hindsight, I realized I just went from one disconnection to a greater disconnection. I was to abuse alcohol sporadically until I was in my mid-30's and going through a divorce. and then began a period of almost 5 years of drinking which eventually led me to be consuming alcohol on a daily basis. It wasn't just alcohol that I was abusing either but legal & illegal drugs. At this stage in my life, I was all alone. My children had gone to live with their father, financially it was a better option for them, and I was living in a basement apartment barely making ends meet.. I found myself unable to get drunk and unable to get sober and the voices would not be denied. I hit rock bottom and can remember getting on my knees, sobbing, and, saying, "If you can do anything with this life, it is yours." After that night, I just stopped drinking. I was sober within a week after a very difficult withdrawal. Luckily I didn't suffer any alcoholic seizures; stopping abruptly like that could have been life threatening.

A series of events over the next few years caused my life to reverse itself. 18 months after filing bankruptcy, I was approved to buy a home. A job presented itself that allowed me to work in a no pressure environment. New and wonderful people came in my life. One of those people was a medium who gave me guidance. How did I come across her? Some one I had been working with had been going to a fortuneteller, one of those people you see with the flashy sign in the window and I suggested she find a real psychic. A woman in a doctor's office gave me a referral. Bizarre? Yup. So I took my friend to a session with this medium, but my friend didn't like the experience, I don't think it had quite the flare she was used to from the fortuneteller. But the medium ended up telling me that I had been called to do this work in a spiritual context for a long time

Eventually, I ended up taking classes at the Institute for Spiritual Development in Washington, DC, which was a metaphysical church. I spent time training to work with the psychic energies so I could better interpret what was coming through me. I learned about ethics, energy, service, and there were people there who I could talk to about what I had experienced and not feel I was crazy. For so many years, I believed I was nuts and that my job was to "pass" as normal, which I thought I had been doing successfully.

When Spirit told me I was ready to do readings or sessions with people, I didn't want to. My friends at ISD called me "the reluctant medium" and I was. It was slow going at first, doing only two or three a month for a while. Then one day my day job was found redundant and I was given the option of early retirement or to apply for another job. There was no lack of clarity this time. I took the early retirement and thought, "Oh well, if Spirit doesn't send me any one I can always go work at Borders Books to supplement my income." About 6-8 weeks later, I was doing 4 or 5 sessions a week and would shortly have a waiting list.

That female energy I spoke about earlier, I now call Spirit and she has worked with me constantly especially during my early work. She has always been my teacher. Spirit has sent me to books, set my work practices and given me training to deepen my relationship with my work, and done, oh, so many other things for me. It has been an intense time of learning and, I must say it continues to be.

I have always wanted to stay in the background; be unknown, keep to myself, that is comfortable for me. Only two of my neighbors know what I do for a living and this has been my home for 24 years! So writing these words and working on adding my journal to my website, has taken a giant leap of faith for me. I have had much criticism in my life for doing this work, but to be fair I have also had a great deal of praise.

I hope I have written what Spirit wanted me to write. Ooops! I am supposed to tell you more about what my life is like now. I have a Bachelor's degree, and two partial Masters, and a finished Masters. I have two sons, three grandchildren, a stepson, and as of last summer a great-grandson. I have worked at a school for the hearing-impaired. I have a degree in Pastry (Now, that's an interesting story. I hear Spirit say the word "nurture" and in my family that means food and home, so without really thinking it over, I decided I would become a caterer and would have a bed and breakfast but it didn't work out.).. I love to work with fiber. I believe it is what has grounded me and given me a creative outlet. So...I knit, hook rugs, spin yarn, dye yarn, sew, quilt, etc. I don't like to cook much any more. I think it went down hill after I had done an order for 300 pounds of different pasta salads in a weekend job as a cook. I am a "weather nut." I love watching the sky, and "listening" via the Internet to meteorologists studying weather patterns and forecasting. I have a Golden Retriever, named Buddy, who is about 11 years old. We rescued and loved each other last year and now he is not afraid of people and is such a sweetheart. He sits at my feet while I do my sessions. If there is an in-person session he often puts part of his body on my client and part of me. It is kind of like making the circuit complete. I am fostering a cat for my sister-in-law at present. Matilda wakes me in the night with a gentle tap on my cheek so I will pet her.

I think the biggest honor I have in life is being able to work with you. I still get scared doing it and getting up many mornings wishing my schedule would be cancelled. I think this happens because I had so many years of fear with the voices. I know in the deepest part of my being that we are all in this huge soup of love and if we will acknowledge our connections to each other and to this earth, we can all heal. Following Spirit's guidance I have always been cared for and supported. The human difficulty of surrendering to guidance will always be with us, but we can make the bridge between receiving loving guidance and carrying it out shorter and shorter.