Thoughts for the New Year

I actually wrote this poem for a Lughnasadh celebration, but it also seems to encompass my thoughts as the old year comes to a close, and we welcome the new year.

The Life I Have...

The life I have, the life I own
The life that's gone before,
The life that gives me day to day
New hopes, new dreams and more.

The sacrifices made gone by
are things I had to shake
tho' it's hard to give up on 'comfort acts',
new rules are hard to take.

But now I see a brand new world
each morning as I pray
and offer thanks as I stand before
each treasure laden day.

For my life, my love, and all those near
For the blessings bestowed on me this last year
For 'food' to quell my hungry mind
For the Love of my life, so gentle and kind
For my children I thought so far away
For the peace I feel at the close of day.
I embrace the new; shake off the old
and give thanks for the life yet to unfold.

©2007 L.Matthews

The Chakra Virgin

I don’t remember when I first discovered that Chakra Balancing would help me fine-tune my psychic abilities. I know that I was merely looking for a way to ‘improve what was already there’.

With an armful of self help books and the aid of Google, I randomly browsed any and all reading matter I deemed appropriate, expecting my intuition to guide me in finding ways to tune my abilities.

While discovering all manner of meditative exercises intended to sharpen my psychic gifts, I happened across “the chakra”.

Well, not exactly the one chakra, but the seven, the twelve, the thirty-two... depending on which publication you chose to believe.

I was an immediate convert. These seven little spinning wheels (I thought I would start at seven and work my way up from there) were going to guide me down the path to becoming a , more rounded, ‘sensitive’, tuned-in individual, amongst other things.

My first chakra balancing meditation was an amazing experience, unlike some other first time life experiences. The little spinning wheels didn’t want to all spin in the right direction at first, but with practice, I thought I had cracked it. Once I felt that they were all cleansed, balanced and aligned, I came out of my meditative state feeling all floaty and wonderful.

I recall walking around the whole day with a silly grin on my face, as if on a cloud. I felt GOOD! There was no feeling of ‘will people notice a difference in me, now that I have done it?’

As with any ‘self improvement’ exercise, whether a simple effective meditation or a week long retreat, we must eventually return to ‘living in the real world’.

I admit that I didn’t think that I would really notice much of a difference physically. After all, how could seven little spinning wheels that most people couldn’t actually see make any difference to my mundane day to day activities.?

I was working part time on a cash register in a little grocery store, so my job duties didn’t require me to fall into a trance and start connecting with my spirit guides. I was only there to ‘meet and greet’ customers, not give intuitive readings…

It was a Saturday, as I recall. We were busy. Friday night had obviously been quite an event for many of the customers I had to serve. One gentleman in particular seemed to be really under the weather. He must have hit the Jack Daniels pretty hard the night before, washed down with greasy food and cigarettes.

I was feeling sorry for the guy, until the moment he lumbered up to my till. My stomach began churning, my head began aching, and my mouth suddenly tasted like I was chewing tobacco…

I couldn’t understand it. These feelings would have made sense had I indulged the night before. Despite smoking cigarettes, I rarely if ever drink, plus I’m also a vegetarian. Greasy food rarely passes my lips, and certainly nothing a carnivore would cross the road for…

My relief at the departure of Mr. ‘morning after the night before’ only lasted until the approach of Miss ‘If this queue doesn’t move any faster, I am going to miss my pilates class’.

The moment she appeared, I felt as if I had been whacked in the head with a two by four. My face reddened and the pit of my stomach began boiling. I didn’t think it was a ‘fallen chakra’, but when you’re new to the whole chakra perception experience, you never can tell…

After the morning’s emotional roller coaster, I welcomed lunchtime with open arms. Finally, 30 minutes of relief from the relentless sensory overload . I enjoyed my brief repast, and then I returned to the register and my continuing sensory slaughter.

I began to realise that for some people, the shopping experience provokes something akin to road rage. Whether behind the wheels of a shopping cart or the wheel of an automobile, they lose all sense of proportion. Their mantra seems to be ‘every man for himself; check out clerks beware!’ I felt as welcome as a trooper at a speed trap.

As an Empath, I had grown accustomed to picking up on people’s emotions, but never to such a physical degree. I had often perceived the odd bodily twinge telling me where my clients felt discomfort, and I was frequently able to ‘see’ any physical malady in the form of a ‘black mark’ across their body.

Now I became concerned that I was going to have to start keeping a supply of aspirin with me at all times, or at worst, start donning a Kevlar vest to keep out the unwelcome ‘vibes’ that were having a such dramatic physical effect on me.

A few weeks later, as I was relaying my recent experiences to a like-minded friend, she asked me if I closed my chakras after meditation. Setting the little wheels spinning in the right direction, cleansing and aligning them had been enough of an experience; I didn’t realize that once the exercises were over, they might require more ‘maintenance’.

It hadn’t occurred to me that my chakras might need to be closed in order for me to function properly in the ‘real’ world.

Once I followed her suggestion, lo and behold, any physical feelings I experienced afterwards were happily, entirely my own, unless I chose otherwise.

So, when browsing the self-improvement library, meditation virgins beware. Self-help can equally become self-destruct when dealing with the stresses and strains of an everyday existence.

Grounding is not just for electrical apparatus. As with many things in life, protection is of utmost importance. When sharpening your awareness, be careful not to cut yourself!

©2007 L.Matthews

The Psychic Sceptic

I have yet to meet a true psychic who doesn't, at some time in their careers, doubt their abilities. Many psychics wonder how they receive their information, and often ask themselves whether what they are feeling is 'authentic'.

Call it psychic ability, intuition, 'gut feeling', sixth sense, but when I meet psychics who don't question their abilities, the proverbial red flag flaps itself at me so violently, it ends up wrapping itself around my neck.....

I had one such experience this weekend.

In an attempt to meet like minded people in my adopted homeland, I have signed up with many 'Meetup' groups. Some of them have been interesting, some of them informative, some I have felt as though I have wanted to run screaming from.

Last Friday, I attended such a Meetup... The organizer had advertised some sort of healing session, with a nominal charge. The idea of the healing was to banish lost souls who might have inhabited our bodies, who might be causing us to display uncharacteristic personality traits.

In my line of work, I am very aware of the need to protect myself psychically, and thought that the Meetup might be informative, if not beneficial.

As soon as I walked into the meeting, I had the feeling that I had happened across some sort of pseudo cult setting… but I assured the doubting Thomas’s amongst my spirit guides that “all was ok”, my mind was still open, and it was too early to make a judgment.

After singing a couple of songs to ‘raise the level of the proceedings’, the healers got to work on each of us in turn. I found the healings ‘interesting’ to say the least. Everyone seemed to have only two lost souls ‘inhabiting’ their bodies (convenient, as there were two healers…) and although some of what the healers had picked up on seemed to resonate with some of the ‘receivers’, it all seemed a bit ‘unspecific’ for me. I wanted to see something that was really going to convince me – many of the healer’s explanations of ‘soul invasion’ could have been explained away by many things, including unresolved past conflicts, mild depression, and day to day fall out from living in the ‘real world’. I presumed that when it came for my turn to be ‘healed’ that I would see things more clearly, and really understand what was going on... I might even benefit from the experience.

So, my turn came. I stood, I stated my name. I was asked whether I had the healers permission to ‘go into my body. The session started.

The first soul they identified was apparently a child of mine who had died in the 1940’s who was making me feel as though I should be doing more. I couldn’t honestly say that I ever feel like this – I seem to do procrastination very well. I get around to projects eventually (I must say, at work I am much more disciplined) but I never have the last minute panic attacks of the “if only’s”… I was asked whether I believed in reincarnation (but of course), at that time I was doing the maths… If I had been a mother in the 1940’s, I would have had to get death and rebirth over with pretty quickly if I was going to succeed in getting into my current body. Then again, there might be the possibility of ‘soul division’ and the prospect of inhabiting two bodies at the same time; but that seemed a bit on the far fetched side…. OK, so that didn’t resonate with me… You can’t be right all the time. I didn’t have any of the ‘light’ or ‘cleansed’ feelings that I presume would follow such a ‘cleansing’, but I had hope for the second trapped soul to deliver something I could at least identify as an unwanted behaviour pattern I could discover and banish.

I might just mention, during the first part of the healing I began to feel a light tapping on my left thigh. At first I thought I might be experiencing some sort of ‘sitting in the wrong position spasm’, so moved so as to be more comfortable. The ‘tapping’ became more insistent, and I at last recognised it to be a message I get from my spirit guides from time to time that tells me that what I am hearing is not quite kosher…

The second soul was apparently a soldier from the Civil War. This, I could sort of identify with to a degree. On a recent trip to Hollywood Cemetery with my husband and anthropologist Sandra Belanger, I received some pretty powerful images and physical sensations. If a lost soul had ‘jumped on for the ride’ I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. What would have surprised me though is his resilience to leave my mortal shell. I am in the habit of ‘cleansing’ on a daily basis. But hey, we are all human – perhaps I hadn’t done a thorough job on a few occasions… I would have thought my omnipresent spirit guides would have given me a warning by way of the usual unpleasant tingles on the back of my head. OK, so they were napping on the job – no biggy. I made a mental note to have it out with them when I got home.

So, I heard some more about this civil war dude – I forget now what inappropriate emotion he was supposed to be making me feel, but my ears did prick up at the healers mention of ‘being with them’ – “Hey, multi infestation” I thought at the prospect of having many lost souls inhabiting my lowly mortal body, and was momentarily excited. Can’t say I felt fit to burst, but then again, I wasn’t the ‘expert’ here…
Now the ‘tapping’ had changed into a rapid ‘thwack thwack thwack’ – someone was really trying to get their message across. “OK,OK – it’s almost over…” I tried to reassure ‘them’.

There the session ended. The thwacking abated. We cleansed, we parted.

Before we went our separate ways, I learnt a little more about this group. If you want to part with your cash, you are told what psychic abilities you possess. You can receive healing – you are told what inhabits you that might be causing you to behave in the way that you do, not taking into account external stimuli or learned behaviour patterns due to some past trauma. They say they have no room for Gurus in their practice, even though they are not open to any other way but theirs.

It is healthy to doubt and to question. That is the way you learn. If you feel something, research what you are feeling. Seek impartial advice. Keep an open mind. Don’t accept any dogma as being ‘the way’. And watch out for people who offer to cure you of something you are not aware of suffering from; take note of the spiritual thwack on the leg – it’s trying to tell you something.

Oh yes, and if you meet the Buddha on the road to enlightenment, hang on to your wallet…

©2007 L.Matthews