Universal thinking

week 41

Universal thinking

Great. Looks like U has the same about of options as J - meh! Oh what to write... well I looked up 'universe spirituality' on Google and found this. Whilst it's on a Jewish forum, the thoughts by one of the greatest minds this world has ever known, is quite interesting, so I shall cheat and leave you with his thoughts.

Albert Einstein Quotes on Spirituality

1. I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
2. Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
3. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
4. The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
5. Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
6. The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
7. There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
8. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
9. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; It is the source of all true art and science.
10. We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
11. Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
12. When the solution is simple, God is answering.
13. God does not play dice with the universe.
14. God is subtle but he is not malicious.
15. A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.
16. Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
17. The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
18. Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
19. Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.
20. The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
21. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
22. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
23. The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
24. The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.
25. True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
26. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.

Past Lives

week 32

Past Lives

I've touched on this in my other blogs..... and I've done my usual by starting a blog and then not going back to it for three weeks.  Then *POW* I have to start writing... so here goes.

I speak as someone who believes in past lives, I was part of the spiritualist church years ago and I have been to development circle to learn how to attune myself and decipher spirit's communication.  So being a clairvoyant, I believe and know that the energy that is our 'soul' goes on after our mortal body has perished.  This is the place that I am writing from.

It's always been trendy to make claims of being some big shot in your past life. I think that when you have learnt what your past lives were, that they are highly personal to YOU.  They shouldn't be worn as a badge and they don't give you any special powers. If anything, bleating about them, makes you look silly.  Our spiritual path is a personal one and one we should share with trusted people only. Otherwise, those people you share with, can use that information against you... and they do.  Sadly, that is the world we live in. It gives me no pleasure telling you that. I have told people about my spiritual path, people I thought I could trust and when they fell out with me, they then told everyone, like it's some kind of trophy to wave about. Hive minds of resentment and jealousy..... so please take care with whom you share your soul with.

OK, so back to past lives. There are going to be readers who tell you that you were some important person, they may be correct but take into consideration that many are charlatans, charging you for the privilege of making up stories about your former selves.  There is no way of proving what they are telling you is true or not because effectively, it's made up.  How you 'know' is by gut feeling, if what they tell you feels true, you will feel it, maybe all your hairs will stand on end, or you'll get a shiver or whatever your spirit trigger is. Ideally, you need to learn how to find for yourself, what you were and when.  There are books and Cd's you can read and listen too.  Some are bollox, some are good. Go on recommendations.  Mainly it is done by meditation, opening yourself and looking in to a mirror (not an actual mirror but visualise it in your meditation) and seeing your other lives reflect back at you.  You will feel akin to certain things.  You will go to places you have never been to but it feels like you know the place.  You will be drawn to certain people.

One day (15 years ago) I was lying on the bed talking to my friend Lorna (RIP) on the phone. I had a crystal on my forehead and we was nattering away. I became aware of a spirit guide in my room. I couldn't physically see him but I could SEE him in my mind.  He told me his name and that we'd walked the Songlines in a past life. I had carried on being reborn but he stayed behind.  Clear as day. I have no way of checking whether if any of it's true and yet, I know, in my bones, that it is.

Try explaining this to a non-spiritual person and they look at you funny. I've known a High Priestess argue with me about spirits existing at all, and yet she worked with energies.  Everyone has their own beliefs, everyone has a reason for those beliefs.  Everyone has to come to this on their own wind, it cannot be forced and some will never 'get it'.

What does it mean? 
I always say, it's not what you were in a past life, it's what you are in THIS life.  Past life knowledge will leak into your life now, you may find yourself knowing things you've not been taught or seen done before.  Whilst it's great knowing some of the types of people I have been over the millenia, it doesn't really give me any clout in this current existence.  I understand myself a bit better too.  It's personal for each person.

Not knowing your past lives, doesn't make you a lesser pagan/spiritual person. Don't force it. Your spirit guides can help you find those old paths, that lead to the one your soul walks now.  You aren't a failure if you don't know... so enjoy the walk and remember that most people who brag about their past lives, are bellends.  If you really want to know and you cannot find the answers yourself, find a good medium, one that's recommended by friends. Before you sit there and open yourself up to that stranger, ask questions, find out what they can do and whether they are the right person to help you on that journey.

Wash, rinse and repeat
I will add this though. You do carry luggage through the lives.  A few years ago I was having a clairvoyant reading with Richard Twiceborn (RIP), who told me that I was carrying a great deal of anger and my soul wanted vengeance for what had happened to me. I had been a cunning man and the church was pissed off that the people came to me for healing and guidance and not the clergy. So they had me killed. For 1500 years my soul was seeking vengeance on these soldiers who'd killed me. I was told that they had long gone and it was something that would eat me up if I didn't shed it. It wasn't mine (from this life) and it needed to go.  I asked how to do this and he kindly offered to clear it for me. He said that it would hurt me more than him.... every hair stood up on my body, shivers down my back, warmth and the sensation of being lifted inside.  At this precise moment, my son who'd been playing outside with my friend, fell off a wall and cut his head open, blood everywhere.  What hurts me, hurts him... have you seen the Bruce Lee story? Bruce carries his dad's 'demons' with him as his dad failed to deal with them, Bruce passed them on to his son Brandon.  We all know how that ended.. Bruce died very young and Brandon was killed on the set of The Crow.  This is an old Chinese ideology and one I feel is true.  So when that thing left me, it left my son too. My friend ran up and told me my son was hurt and I ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance and getting his head glued. He now has a great Harry Potter like scar, which he thought was great at the time cos he loved Harry Potter and used to run around the Halloweenfest (London) with a cloak and wand.  Feels like forever ago now..

Lessons
It is said that you are given the same lesson in each lifetime to learn, once you have learnt it, you are given another. Some live a whole lifetime not learning that lesson and go on to repeat it in the next life. If you are delving into your past lives, it's more than finding out who you were, it's what you were and finding patterns and picking up the thread and unravelling that lesson.  Do you have the courage to look in to that mirror and see, really see what is there?

And this is without even going into reincarnation and karma! Tread carefully on this path. Be well /|\

Hex

Week 15

I've done a few over the years but not since 2010 because I didn't need to.  I thought about it and it didn't warrant it.  Hexing isn't something you should just do.  It's something that you need to really think about before you decide what needs to be done.  This applies to whatever path you are on.

• why are you doing it? Really think about it. 
• what result do you want from the hex?
• how are you going to do the hex?
• which spirits/deities are you going to call to help you with the hex?
• is the hex really necessary? Have you REALLY thought about it? Can it not be solved by communicating to that person that they are being a wanker? 
• meditate on it.. ask for guidance, ask for inspiration, ask if it's the right thing to do.
• got the go ahead? Then go for it. If it feels right, it is right. 
• teach them a lesson.
• write the details in your book, take some pictures, keep a record. 
• don't broadcast it on social media! Don't threaten people on forums that you'll 'hex them til their eyes glow red' cos you sound like a twat, it's stupid and you can't do it! It's not Charmed ffs, grow up. 
• there is ALWAYS a price to pay. You cannot exert that much energy and not pay. If you don't know what you're doing - DON'T DO IT! Don't be messing about with this shit... and if you get it out of a book that has a red velvet cover or other fluffy book, then you're a bloody fool and deserve the backlash of your stupidity and ignorance.

How about this. Instead of doing a hex to harm that person who's upset you, how about doing a working, put it into words what that person has done and why you feel wronged. Then ask the Universe to sort them out as it sees fit.

Or teach them a lesson
Someone was being spiteful and hateful. Their lies were really doing harm. So I did a hex to reflect back to them what they were putting out. For them to be gagged by their own poisonous words, to choke on their own venom and when they had learnt the error of their ways, the hex would release them. It's using their own darkness against them.  Writing it down, exactly how they are wronging you and reflecting that behaviour back to them often is all that's needed.  Ask the Universe to help.... that's all a spell or prayer is really, putting it 'out there'.  There are no guarantees. Some people are impervious.

Three fold rule
Yeah, I don't hold with that one bit. Once upon a time, I was afraid, actually afraid to wish retribution on those who had really done me over in case it came back to me. What a load of bollox!  It's more of a guideline than a rule anyway... nothing wrong with not being a wanker to people, it's basic good manners really.  If you wrong people, you should expect it to return to you.  I'm not even Wiccan! It has become a pagan rule, rather than the Wiccan rede that it's supposed to represent. It's been twisted and corrupted by fluffy people who aren't even on that path.  Those people who take this 'rule' literally do themselves more harm than good, I speak from my own experience. Most of the time it's been misquoted and that's typical really because pagans put down Christians for doing the same, yet quite happily do the same with the three fold rule.  It's open to interpretation like all text.  It's part of the Wiccan Rede, if you're going to abide by the Rede, then it should be to ALL the Rede and not the last sentence... plus it has to be fairly irksome to actual Wiccans to have their words misquoted by fluffy people. The Wiccans I've met, have been initiated and trained and don't spout off.  Those who follow wicca, aren't Wiccans. Wiccans are those who have been initiated into a coven.  Or so I'm led to believe, it's not my area of expertise, so my apologies if I got it wrong or offended anyone - not my intent.

I'm not Wiccan, I don't know if this is the actual full rede but it says it is and there's so much on the www it's mad!

Back to hexing........
Everything I do, comes from within. The ones I have done in the past have been after I asked spirit for guidance. I sat and thought about it for a few days and then if it was right to do, I did a working. For me, it involves fire, fresh sage and rosemary on the fire, alcohol (usually mead), maybe a candle, the poppet I've made, maybe a sharp thing to focus with (hehehe) and my cat Booster - he just likes to sit on my lap when I have a fire. I write down what I want to achieve. I sit by the fire and relax my mind. I ask my guides to come close and to help me with doing what is right. I ask a deity to come close and to give me the go ahead. If I feel it's ok to proceed, I do.  Each time has been different. Each time there's been a different deity felt. It does use your energy and you may find you're tired for a couple of days or even feel ill.

You can also apply all of the above to working with poppets. They don't have to be for hexing, they can be used for healing work too.  When I visited the Witchcraft museum in Boscastle, they had recently uncovered a secret room of the late Cecil Williamson, full of poppets, curse/hex objects and many other wonderful things.  These were put on display in big glass cases and the artifacts are very old.  Hexing/cursing is an ancient thing.  In Roman baths they have found lead tablets with a prayer to curse a person, folded over and thrown in to the local God/ess there.  It's not a new thing. People went to a specialist to do these things. They'd pay them in some form and then leave them to it, happy in the knowledge that the man who stole their pig would be struck down with some horrible disease.  What can I say, people have always had the capacity to be petty vindictive dicks lol.  The picture below is of a curse tablet found in London. It reads:

"I curse Tretia Maria and her life and mind and memory and liver and lungs mixed up together, and her words, thoughts and memory; thus may she be unable to speak what things are concealed, nor be able."  (translation: British Museum) - nice!

Wiki article on Curse Tablets

If you are ever in Cornwall, make sure you visit the Witchcraft museum. It's a wonderful place and I highly recommend it. Read their guide.

If you recall in my blog Glamour, there was a person who was telling people I was going to hex her on the full moon.  I haven't because she's not worth my energy.  I haven't felt the need to do a working since 2010. And that's why I love Granny Weatherwax, just because you know how to do it, doesn't mean you have to. The tip is knowing when NOT to use magic.  Hexing isn't always the way to deal with a situation. Of course there's the added power of Headology... let them think you've done something. Let them twist themselves up thinking you're going to do something.  Not that I did, in that particular case, that was all her imagination. I was just as surprised to read I was going to do it as everyone else lol.

There are people who have done such heinous things to me, that I wouldn't want to tap into that hatred I have for them. That's a dark place I don't want to explore. Which is why I haven't seriously fucked them up... and I could but it would cost me more.

THERE IS ALWAYS A PRICE TO PAY.
Remember that...

Granny, Green Man and Guides

Week 14 - as I can't decide which one, I shall discuss these three =o))

Paul Kidby - love his work! Just how you imagine the characters to look.

Granny Weatherwax
I love the Discworld novels, I've read them all countless times. My favourite ones are the ones with the witches in.  If you want to know about witchcraft, real witchcraft - read these books. I met 'Grandad' a few years back, he runs the Hitchhikers fan club and was telling me about how he knows Terry and apparently the witches are based on real people.  I love the fact that there's actually people out there like this.

Granny: “I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult. Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.”
Nanny Ogg: “But all them things exist.”
Granny: “That’s no call to go around believing in them.  It only encourages ’em.”

“There’s magic, and then again, there’s magic. The important thing, my girl, is to know what magic is for and what it isn’t for. And you can take it from me, it was never intended for lighting fires, you can be absolutely certain of that."

I don't read craft books. I like Granny's attitude to 'Boffo' and I agree, you don't need a special knife to cut air with for ritual, you don't need coloured candles, you don't need trinkets and triple goddess pendants to be a witch....... but if that's your thing, more power to you... we all need something to make it 'real'.  I don't but that's me lol

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Green Man

I love going into old churches and going Green Man hunting.  You can guarantee that if it's an old Norman church or from around that time, there will be a Green Man, on the ceiling.  The picture above is one that I took in St.Mary's church in Hitchin, nearly 1000 years old.  Just because they are churches, doesn't mean that the craftsmen that built them were Christian.  In the really early churches, you can also find Sheela-na-gigs - sometimes described as 'imps' in the church logs but these are often a female figure pulling open their lady parts and some have their tongues lolling out... there's lots of stories about them and no one can agree on their meaning.  It's the meaning you give it, I suppose, as with all things. Also another Green Man spot, is sometimes you find the old lecterns have what looks like Jesus with leaves and vines coming out of his mouth, which is actually very early Green Man carvings. 

When I'm gazing, I have seen the outline of a big green face in trees before. I feel that he is the spirit of the nature, of trees and things that grow. I have no thesis behind my attraction to the Green Man, nor have I read up on it to form an educated opinion. I just feel connected to him.  As always, I like to provide links to sources of information and I found a good one I think you'll enjoy, there's also a regular podcast. 

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Owl - one of my animal guides

Guides

I work with spirit. I have been made aware of several guides over the years. Each guide will come to work with you depending on what help you need.  It seems that everyone has a red Indian guide... no seriously, how many people have you heard speaking about their guides, haven't boasted about their Native American? Been in a spiritualist church lately? Seen the Indian pictures and then there's all those books on people channeling an Indian guide.  It's a bit of a phenominononononon lol

Just because you don't know they are there or who they are, doesn't mean they aren't there and helping you.

When I was sitting in development circle, I became more aware of my guides. I'm afraid to say that I lost the way a bit and didn't do much spirit work for a few years and lost touch with my guides. They are still with me though, I'm just not aware of them all the time.

There's a bit of a craze with people claiming to have animal guides.  Everyone always purports to have eagle, wolf or some power animal as a guide.  What's wrong with the other animals? I have been doing the Medicine Wheel cards for 20 years and there's a wide spectrum of creatures, all with stories from Native American cultures.  The nature of the creature, it's mannerisms and character, depicts those within yourself or ones you need to akin to.  We already met Rabbit in my Fear blog.  

You cannot always be eagle or wolf or some other noble creature... you have to learn the ways of all the animals, for they all have a lesson to teach about ourselves.  Claiming to be just the one, isn't a guide, it's your fantasy.  Fantasy has it's place but it's not spiritual growth to deny yourself these lessons. 

I've encountered a nun as a guide before. It surprised me at the time because I don't have any love for dogma or the confines of church.  But Cara (the name she gave me) was a carer, a healer and helped me understand the journey I was making as a healer.  There was four that I knew of at this time... all had something to teach me, not that I was fully aware of those lessons. Doesn't make them any less valid, knowledge can be glimpsed in dreams and the world around.  

Hope that makes sense... it's nearly 5am, my eye is twitching and telling me it's time for bed.

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts x

Empathy

Week 10

Two blogs in one night and the last one was really emotional.  So here goes a hopefully shorter blog! (bet it's not lol)

empathy

According to the Oxford dictionary

The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Wikipedia

Empathy has many different definitions that encompass a broad range of emotional states, such as caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling; and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other.[6]

Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derivative of the way emotions themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate[7] and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained[8] and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

Empathy necessarily has a "more or less" quality. The paradigm case of an empathic interaction, however, involves a person communicating an accurate recognition of the significance of another person's ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states, and personal characteristics in a manner that the recognized person can tolerate. Recognitions that are both accurate and tolerable are central features of empathy.[9][10]

The human capacity to recognize the bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities and seems to be grounded in an innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself.[11] Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling.

Empathy is distinct from sympathy, pity, and emotional contagion.[12] Sympathy or empathic concern is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help as they cannot fix their problems themselves, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively "catches" the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is happening.[13]

Why am I quoting dictionaries? Because the word empathy is used in the spiritual circles to mean something very different.  I've had this discussion with a friend before and it got a little heated.  This word is now used to mean those who can psychically pick up another's feelings, emotions and  intent. Like Deanna Troy from Star Trek Next Generation.  Deanna was half Batazoid and they are telepathic, so she could hone in on someone and pick up their impressions from them.  They called her an 'empath'.  Now everyone is using this word and it raises my hackles a bit.  Probably for the same reason why the way the word shaman is banded about... but that's another blog and oh boy, will that be an epic soapbox rant!

You are not an EMPATH. You are feeling empathic (which most humans are capable of) and a jolly good thing it is too, to be able to empathise with someone.  It's very different to sympathy and pity too, as it says in the descriptors above.  Having the ability to be able to empathise with people, to help them by relating to their woes, is a gift in itself.  I use this when I do tarot readings or having a heart to heart with someone. I relate things that have happened to me, to help people understand that they can face similar problems and get through it.

If you have that extra ability to pick emotions up, you are not an empath, you are clairsentient.

the ability for a person to acquire psychic knowledge by means of feeling

Now there's three types of spirit communication. Clairvoyance - to see; clairaudiance - to hear, and clairsentient - to feel.  Derived from French 'Clair' meaning 'clear', 'voyance' meaning 'vision' etc etc. It's also considered a type of ESP.  What it is, is not the normal run of the mill empathy. Most humans can show empathy, I say most, those with conditions such as Aspergers Syndrome have difficulties and I'm sure there's other conditions that remove this ability or reduce it.  Then there are people who really have it in abundance... that's not 'normal', that's clairsentience.

Why does it matter I hear you cry? Because it does. The same way that not everyone who practices witchcraft is Wiccian.  Like those who practice wicca aren't all initiated Wiccians (note the capital letter), like people who say they are a druid and haven't done the 21 years and people who do some drumming and think it's shamanic........... it does matter.  If you are going to openly declare your psychic/spiritual abilities then get it RIGHT or you end up looking daft.  And the forums will rip you apart, what with all that love and peace floating about lol.

That said, I do concede that the term 'empathic' is used beyond it's original meaning.  Star Trek Next Generation (which I'm a fan of) is 17 years old now.  Think about it... when did the new age lot start using the word 'empath' - bet it was after Deanna Troy came on our screens.

Meanings aside, the ability of clairsentience is one I have in abundance.  This is when you really need to learn how to not walk around the supermarket 'wide open' like I have done.  One time I was in Morrisons and there was this girl who walked past me, ouzing misery off her, can't blame the poor girl, the crap she was going through was bad.  She walked past me and I felt horrible, an empty feeling of pure hopelessness... of despair and pain.  I didn't know the full extent of all the crap she was dealing with until much later and she had every right to feel that way, poor girl.

I read a great article on empathy today that I will share with you. It rings very true with me... give it a read and see whether you tick all the boxes.  If not, that just means you're a run of the mill caring person who gives a shit about others feelings and likes to comfort them.  Nothing wrong with that, if only the world had more people like that in it.

You recall my last blog and I mention about the news? This is a paragraph from the empathy article:

Empaths are sensitive to TV, videos, movies, news and broadcasts. Violence or emotional dramas depicting shocking scenes of physical or emotional pain inflicted on adults, children or animals can bring an empath easily to tears. At times, they may feel physically ill or choke back the tears. Some empaths will struggle to comprehend any such cruelty, and may have grave difficulty in expressing themselves in the face of another’s ignorance, closed-mindedness and obvious lack of compassion. They simply cannot justify the suffering they feel and see.

I have What Dreams May Come on video.. I've had it since it came out and I've still not watched it because I know it will ruin me.  The Notebook... omg, beautiful film but the ending!  I'm sure other's got their hankies out but I reckon I used the whole loo roll.  And that's what it's like for me.. even though they are actors, in a film, I get over emotional and then it rattles around my head endlessly. I try not to watch them too often and in the case of What dreams may come... I have put it off for over a decade. I think that's cos Lorna said it was a sad film, she's in spirit now, I keep looking at it on the shelf and thinking of her, so I think I'll give it a watch this week.  Maybe.

The news slays me. Another thing I pick up is when I stop to help at road accidents. I pick up the panic, the shock and I feel myself choking down their emotions, tears prick my eyes and I have to tell myself to sort myself out so I can help the people (first aid, moving traffic before emergency services arrive).  I think that's why I never ventured in to the medical profession or the police, I'm too vulnerable.  I am hoping to start a carer in caring for the disabled, I like helping people, I like using my abilities to put people at ease, to heal.

Anyways, it's 4.40am, that's two blogs in three hours and my knees are telling me it's time to get off the chair.

So there you go... being an empath/clairsentient doesn't mean you are telepathic.. that's another thing entirely. I love sci-fi as much as the next person but don't confuse it with real life... that's how scientology etc got started!

Please don't be offended by my passion... that's just who I am.... like Marmite (vegemite sucks!)

Aha! Just spotted this paragraph in the empathy article... how bloody true!

Even complete strangers find it easy to talk to empaths about the most personal things, and before they know it, they have poured out their hearts and souls without intending to do so consciously. It is as though on a sub-conscious level that person knows instinctively that empaths would listen with compassionate understanding. Then again, for empaths, it is always nice to actually be heard themselves!

Death

It is a subject that has kept cropping up this last week and last night, a beautiful old lady died at the age of 110.  Maybe my blog was late because I needed her words to inspire me.  Who knows.

The one thing certain in life is that you are going to die.  Morbid? Not really, it is a reality. I have found this last year, I have been very conscious of my own mortality and are times when I constantly think about me dying and what I'm leaving behind.  It's not constructive or healthy but it is natural considering I am going through the grieving process.

I lost my estranged brother to cancer last March. I also lost my ex-best friend Lorna to a heart attack. I lost a brother Knight Ghyll to cancer. I lost a friend and colleague Gail to a bike crash. The one year old boy called Ryan who I'd been sending healing to, died of the same cancer my brother did and another biker mate Tom died of pneumonia. All within a couple of months.  By July, I was a total mess. I was laying on the table at my osteopaths (he is also a reiki master and acupuncturist and clairvoyant) and he was sorting out my knees with acupuncture and talking about why I was upset.  He asked me why it was that I believed in the after life and spirit contact but was upset about death.  I replied that it wasn't the dying, it was what I left behind that upset me.  What would happen to my son, my home, my possessions, my cats... what would people say at the funeral, to my son, who'd raise him, would me cats be put in homes .... you get the idea. The thought of all of this ate me up inside.

As time has gone on, this fear has eased off but it's still there. Depression amplifies this fear and I'm up and down with that due to my current physical state. I'm due to have general anaesthetic next month for an operation on my knees. I have been sedated before but not totally under, that deep sleep could be a wonderful thing where I travel or it could be the death of me. I think it's the thought of the needles that's doing me in the most and the loss of control over my body.  So now getting my Will in order and going to do a video telling people what I want/don't want at my funeral.  In a non-morbid way, I've been planning my funeral music for years... music is such a big part of my life and when I've been to others funerals, the music played at them represented who they were.

I think it would be a good idea to make sure your family and friends know what you want to happen with your remains, the sort of funeral you want and what you represent. I've been to too many where the funeral was the last thing that person would have wanted and it was more what their family wanted. That's not right.

Yesterday the oldest survivor of the concentration camps died aged 110.  You may have seen her on documentaries about people living active lifestyles well past their 100th year. Alice was the lady who played the piano. Her music kept the spirits up in those retched places and gave some hope to those who had none. She continued to play until the day she died. It will be easier for me to copy and paste the news article about her life. It's worth sharing.

"I think I am in my last days but it does not really matter because I have had such a beautiful life.

"And life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything we experience is a gift, a present we should cherish and pass on to those we love."

Ms Herz-Sommer recalled "always laughing" during her time in Terezin, where she and other inmates put on occasional concerts.

She said the joy of making music had kept their spirits up.

"These concerts, the people are sitting there, old people, desolate and ill, and they came to the concerts and this music was for them our food. Music was our food. Through making music we were kept alive."

Life IS beautiful. Love IS beautiful. Nature and music ARE beautiful. She never lost sight of this and this resonates with me hugely.  I see the beauty in everything around me... even when I'm low.  So thank you Alice for reminding me that inspite of the horrors you face, life can be good.  What an inspirational, beautiful person.  Rest in peace, you've earned it x

Naked trees

Bare blue skies

Last years leaves

Litter the ground

Cold winds blow

A mighty chill

Rain turns to snow

The sun climbs higher

Daffodils and crocus

Snowdrops and catkins

Life has burst thru

The cold hard earth

Life is imminent

It's waiting to bloom

Green shoots and colours

Birds return home

Colder weather will come

Life still breaks thru

Defying frozen death

Under frost and snow

New life breaks thru

Winters death begins to wane

Sunny days and blue skies

Wake us up within

New life in Springtime

The lambing season not far

Cold winds may blow

Spring has been announced

written by me =o))

Edited to add that, life is about death. As a pagan, you observe the season changes.. when the world is reborn (spring), when it feeds us (summer) when we harvest (autumn) and when the world dies (winter). It's all about life and death cycles.  For some, death is just the next big adventure. Every culture, faith and religion in all corners of the world has their own version of what happens when you die, where you go and what you do.  As a medium, I know spirit goes on... death is only a transition. But by gods, it's a painful one, especially for those left behind.  As a healer, I try to make the transition as peaceful as possible but that's another story.  Thanks for reading x

Dreamtime

I saw this in the prompt list and thought hmmmm... think I'll give that a go.

Back in 1998, I met one of my spirit guides. Everyone has a Native American one it seems.. at that time I wasn't really aware of any of my guides, although I'm sure they were there all the same.

I was laying on my bed whilst on the phone to Lorna with a piece of Laboradite on my forehead, as you do, when I became aware of an Aboriginal man standing there, not wearing much and holding a big staff. He told me I could call him John, although that wasn't his real name. He also told me that we used to walk the Songlines together in a past life and that he'd stayed in spirit and I'd decided to be reborn. I have always had a longing to return to Ayres Rock/Ulura, although I've not been there in this lifetime.  I have friends in Australia and I intend to go there in the next couple of years.  Money is very tight but it's worth saving for.

Just wow! Source - here

The songlines are what we'd call leylines or meridians. They are energy pathways, linking places in the land. In the UK there are several main leylines that have prominent monuments on them. They are ancient procession routes, pilgrims walked them and worshiped at key locations on the way. These can be found throughout the Earth.  Some are so straight, it's a wonder how the ancients were able to map them without our modern instruments. Look at the pyramids - there's no clear view, yet they managed to line them all up within a few degrees. There's so many examples to give, it makes you think 'how' they did it. I find this all truly amazing and it's something I'm deeply interested in.

Source here

People seem to think that because you know about a past life, that it means you know everything about it. Not true. I am shown glimpses of it and then I have to work it out.  Also what I knew then, isn't what I'm supposed to know now unless I'm shown it.  I have found that I am able to tap into old knowledge, I seem to just know things... I will be given inspirations during a working to do something a certain way, which I believe is spirit guiding me. I certainly do not own any books on that sort of thing. I have had many past lives but as I always say to people, it's what you learn in THIS lifetime that's important. Usually there's a repeat lesson to learn... not sure what my one is. I keep coming back though, hmm.

I am a big dreamer. I travel in my dreams. I often get a flashback of my dreams a few hours after I've woken up.  They are always in colour and always so real.  I find myself thinking that I've been somewhere and then realise that it's only a dream memory, not one from actually going.  Very discombobulating. Had to get that word in somehow hahaha!  Your dreams are the key to your subconscious. I like to do dream analysis and have a couple of books that I use for reference. One is all doom and gloom, everything you dream is going to mean something bad... and the other is one of those you find in WHSmith, basic, with pretty pictures and a more user friendly.  Using keywords from these and some clairvoyance, I am usually able to give a good reading on a dream.

I have woken up, sitting up in bed before talking Italian. I can't speak Italian. I was talking to my great grandad, whom I never met.  I have woken up talking to a knight sitting on a chair in the corner of the B&B room opposite Beaumaris castle. That was freaky.  I often wake up talking and more recently 'what are you doing?' to a person who's saying something to me whilst I'm asleep. There's only me in the room.  It's really annoying! I have been woken up after it felt like I had been stabbed in the hand.  I turned the light on, looking at my hand to see if there was a mark and remembering the pain but couldn't see any evidence.  He's not visited recently but for a while, I could hear a deep voice and there was a man with tight curly black hair talking to me.  I got the impression he was Greek or from that part of the world.  I did consider whether it was my voice and even downloaded one of those apps on my phone to capture it happening. Haven't yet.

Dreamtime art, done for a school project! See more here

Lizard is one of my totem animals. Lizard is dreaming. Yes, I incorporate the beliefs of many nations, into my own. Their stories resonate with me. Yes, I have since met my Native American spirit guide.. I didn't want to be left out lol.

Living in a dreamworld

Reality within reach

Crystal blue skies

And a warm sandy beach

High peaks capped

With white fluffy clouds

Fast mountain rivers

With mist as their shrouds

Lost in space

As time passes by

Billions of stars

Burn holes in the night

Faraway places

That call to me often

Ayres rock, plateaus

Table top mountain

The inevitable question

Breaks my astral dream

My son wakes me and asks

'Mum, what's for tea?'

by me circa 1999

B is for - Blue Crow

What I'm about to share with you now is very personal. It is about my spiritual path and how I was given the name Blue Crow. I'm a bit wary expressing it as it goes but I think it's time.

Back in the day of forums, we had to invent a user name. Remember those? Lots of well known goddesses and the such were used.  I used to be IckleSlaine after my tattoo of an ickle Slaine McRoth (2000ad geek n proud). This was circa 2002. I then shortened it to Slaine, which I used for a few years.

Ickle Slaine

I went to work for the MOD in 2004 at RAF Henlow and outside my window was the Hunter gate guardian and some chestnut trees that these two crows used to sit in. I always did stare out of windows as a kid and not much has really changed.  I'd just started discovering my spiritual path. I had been down the spiritualist route and was the Secretary of the SNU church in Letchworth GC.  By 2004, I had discovered that what I was had a name and that was 'pagan'.  Everyone had their paths and discussed these at length and of course, people had their 'spirit' names. Usually these had some mystical creature in them and they often assumed a whole new personality (online) to match their character name. Yes, I went there, character name.  It is too easy to get caught up in playgan roleplaying... yes I went there too! Aren't I naughty lol ! I think what I'm saying is that a fair few of these people were full of shit really.  They did it because it was fashionable and because the big kids on the forum did it too and looked cool and knowledgeable. Fair enough, it's easy to get caught up in it all.

The point is, at the time, I didn't really know what path I was on. I had been told by three shamans (proper ones, not like the latest fad of wannabes DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FFS) that I was a shaman. I had no idea what that was, other than the American Indian sort.  I did some research and found an excellent book called Shamans through time - 500 years. It was a big fat book of written accounts by anthropologists, missionaries and that ilk who'd gone into the world to study/explore/convert and had found shamans in near enough every culture. Their accounts vary from Christian bias to those who went to live with the tribe for a month and learn how the shaman works in their community healing the sick etc.  The original term of shaman was used for a tribe in Siberia but it has since become a generic term throughout the world. Not that the know-it-alls on the forum cared, if you weren't from that tribe in Siberia you weren't a shaman and you were a fake. 20 posts per page, 15 pages later... I'm still being flayed for daring to 'come out' as someone who'd been told I was a shaman but didn't know what that meant.  Oh My Gods, it was horrendous.  Nearly a decade has gone by and it still haunts me... and that's why I get wary sharing! Nice way to help someone on their path isn't it? So much for peace and love! Don't get me started....

View outside my office window on a foggy day

Anyway, I digress!
One of the many lunchtimes gazing out the window, I was daydreaming (also normal) and I wondered what my spirit name was. The crows were out front, playing about, looking for food, chasing off the magpie (usual stuff for them) and I got the name 'Blue Crow'.  It was just there, in my head. I asked why and what it meant and I received no reply.  It was about two years later that I was told what it meant.

I was writing a lot of poetry at this time and here is one I penned about my friends the crows at work. My friend Cliff Carr turned it into a song and has performed it at Avebury, which is a bit surreal hearing your words being turned into music.

Crow he calls

Oh how he calls to me

‘Pick up your ears and listen

For I have much to say!’

Can you not hear the call?

Can you not understand?

You can see crow everywhere

You can hear his calls

Loudly he cries his message

Over and over again

I pick up my ears and listen

To what he’s trying to say

‘Come follow me!

Go deep within yourself

Close your eyes and slow your breath

Spread your wings and fly’

‘Fly above it all and survey the land

Call out what you see

Feel the earth and skies unite

Ride the updraft of the breath of life’

This is the path of Sacred Law

This is the call of crow

These are the words that reach my ears

Crows call penetrates my soul

December 2004

Time flies and roll on December 2007 and I had that 'aha!' moment and then it made sense.. for a short time because you're not supposed to make sense of your life, only the lessons passing through it at that time.

Blue is the sky

That envelopes us all

Blue is the healing rays

Blue is the deepest seas & skies

Crow is the Keeper of Sacred Law

Truth of Time kept

Blue Crow is the Keeper of what covers us all

The whole world

All times

I hold it all

I cannot unlock these secrets I keep

Only Time will reveal them 

when they need to be

So there you have it. How I got my name and what I was told it means. It's hard to believe it's been six years since all that happened.  I will probably write more about it when I get to the letter S on the blog project. Blimey, just thought, that will be nearly at the end of this year... who knows what will happen til then. 

That last paragraph of the last poem may need some explaining. All I can say for now is - it's a past life thing.