I’m so scared because I don’t know what to do, nor who to turn to. Flashes of insights, intuition, and a “knowing” that borders on the psychic have arisen in me and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.
I could blame it on angels. I had walked a “Long Dance’ just the night before I asked two women, both of whom I believed to be strangers if they could interpret what a depiction of an angel was holding in her hand. (I had placed the angel on a banner to show what my future might hold.) You could tell the angel held a wreath in one hand — the one where her arm extended in a gesture awarding someone an accolade. But I could not tell what the un-raised handheld at her side was. “Is it a banana peel?” I asked. “Maybe a boomerang?”
The first woman, an art therapist, could not tell me, and I jokingly said to the other woman, that I should ask for my money back for her “art counseling.” That woman was an artist, who also offered no answer, but immediately spoke to the other, saying: “Are you a therapist? My best friend (So & So Hopkins) works in that field.” [Fake name partially added.]
The “monkey mind” of thoughts can’t control me now
“She was my supervisor,” the therapist said in genuine surprise. “I’ve been trying to contact her for some time now.”
OK, I agree, this is not so crazy. Call it a “synchronicity,” the term the great psychologist Carl Gustav Jung coined for something we all know is really not a coincidence.
Two days later, however, a woman in a church pew was asking those of us in attendance to pray for a friend for some debilitating illness where she would need a transplant. A full second before she announced the name of the woman, I was mouthing it to myself: “Maria.”
“Holy Crapoli,” I added to no one in particular after realizing what I had just said. I was with a bunch of Buddhist students seeking enlightenment through prayer and a teacher. I didn’t consider my involuntary excited utterance to be considered “right speech” in Sanskrit terms, so I kept it to myself.
I did mention Maria’s name to one student following what’s known as a “dharma” talk or instruction. The student, another woman who was a complete stranger, called my prior knowledge “psychic.” I suggested the word “clairvoyant,” a term Buddhist use. She confided that two people had just recently told her that she was “psychic.” I didn’t pursue it further, but discussed with her a question she raised during services about the “Tibetan Book of the Dead.” Not everything dies, she was told. Awareness remains. “Awareness lives on.”
Having read the book as a teenager, I recalled that this “awareness” enters a state of consciousness called the “Bardo,” a transitional place between death and rebirth, where one who failed to achieve enlightenment as a human would remain for 49 days until a rebirth for, among other things, “karmic adjustments” [my words].
I explained this to her, but forgot to mention that it wasn’t just the Buddhists and Hindus that accepted reincarnation, but also the Kabbalists, the Mystic Jews, who believe that we will all return in a new life, unless we have “corrected” all things that prevent us from permanently “clinging” to the Creator. We will reincarnate in the same sexual form – man or woman – and retain the spiritual level we achieved in our previous incarnations.
“Christians taught this belief,” I said, and she nodded, stating she read this in the Book of the Dead. The Gnostic Christians believed the soul had existed before one’s lifetime. They also saw Jesus not so much as a God, but as a guide, a man who achieved perfection and whose life could be emulated by others. (Sounds like the Buddha, the prophet Mohammed and/or Moses to me.) This was labeled as “heresy” in the Year 553 by some Council of the Catholic Church, I believe it was the Second Council of Constantinople.
The third event that sent shivers through me occurred just last night. A woman – yes, another stranger, one of whom I had only “met” through Internet messaging — publicly sent what I call a “feel good” quote over the Net for a quick spiritual uplift. It read:
“Don’t believe everything you think.”
I provided the following, which I copied verbatim from the Ram Dass – Be Here Now Satsang:
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Yesterday 9:02 PM
I thought this exact thing last night and approached a Buddhist teacher at a WON Temple in Glenside, PA, and said this to her: I said that I did not want to believe everything I thought.
This is . . . wonderful. It is the second time in 24 hours that I experienced something so incredible. I can only call it mystical.
Looking back with my new insight, I see it was the third thing of a “psychic” nature happening to me and in my life.
The more I thought about it, the more freaky it started to feel if you know what I mean. The word “freaky,” that is. I think it’s a legal term used right before someone is labeled a “loony.”
Who do I talk to about this? Where do I seek help? What is to become of me now?
Contoveros 
Now I’m REALLY going to drive you crazy. I just took a look, and it appears that you can only read the preface all the way through as a preview on the book’s Kindle page. On the print page it provides a much shorter excerpt. If you’re interested, just click on the part where it will take you to the Kindle page, and click on “Look Inside” there. I’d just like you to be able to read the whole preface there online, without buying the book (if you’re interested in looking at it at all!).
OK. NOW I’m done.
N.
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OK–I honestly have no idea why the whole cover image came up there. I wish it hadn’t; all I did was type in the URL for its Amazon page. I’m VERY sorry…
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I am just now going through ‘Invisible Acts of Power by Carolyn Myss. I got the audion for Soundstrue.com, the book is also available.
We are all connected, so there is no reason to find these thing extraordinary, except for the fact that they are now happening in a way that you are more aware of. Also I’d recommend –
http://thespiritscience.net/spirit/ and http://www.thespiritualcatalyst.com/ – both great resources that may help you understand that the extraordinary is really quite ordinary …
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I have surfed both sites and see what you mean about the extraordinary being the ordinary. It’s very comforting. Now, let me look more into Carolyn Myss. I have a few books of hers I have never read and feel directed toward her, thanks to you!
Thank You.
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Sacred Contracts was good, even without doing all the ‘homework’ Good luck ,,,
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Go for a good holiday away from where you live–far away, relax, get a few snorts of scotch and quit the bit about angels for a while-get both feet down on the ground, and you’ll be just fine.
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Johnny Walker Red and I are old friends. I’ll have to look him up and put down the angels. My son says I got too many of ’em around me, anyway, and they’re starting to clutter up the house. The angels, not the scotch.
Thanks my friend.
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Hi, Michael!
Don’t freak! And try not to give it a label (“psychic”, etc.). I think it’s all what’s really normal and natural, but people tend to shut these kinds of things out for lack of understanding, or make them something they’re not. As I’ve said many times since we “met” online, you’re one of the most open people I’ve ever come across. Just relax and see what happens without jumping to any conclusions. If it’s anything that seems to be based in anything other than love, just ignore it. If it’s anything else, you’ll know what to do.
I hope you’re doing well, otherwise!
Nancy (the former “Saradode” 🙂 )
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Oh Nancy. I thought of you as I questioned my sanity. I remember your voices in either Greek, Hebrew or was it Aramaic? Was it a gift or a curse, I asked.
Let’s see, I’ve danced the night-long “Long Dance” and mingled with Native Americans in sweat lodges. I was initiated into the first level of Reiki practice. I also joined Thich Nhat Hanh in a walking meditation.
I see myself as a mystic, a “marvelous modern mystic,” if I do say so myself. Yes, I am still knocking on doors and entering abodes where people like you and others I’ve met on-line exist in a separate reality. I call you my sister, my mother, my daughter, as well as my friend.
Thanks for your insight and compassionate support!
Now, have I told you lately that I love you?
I love you!
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Always good to know that people think of me when they question their own sanity!! 🙂 Actually, I had started to really worry that you hadn’t responded to my comment because you’d decided that I was just too much of a lunatic… It was SO nice to see this in my inbox this morning!
Yes–all of those languages, plus a few others (I learned a lot of Lakota a year or two ago!), although these days I’m getting a bit of a break, and a lot is in just plain English (of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I always understand what I’m being told, at least not right away). But I remain boringly sane, raising my son (who is becoming an awesome rock ‘n’ roll guitarist, and I’m blessed because he likes to play stuff like Hendrix, the Stones, etc.–no Justin Bieber for MY boy!), and watching the ocean outside my window.
You’ve done so much (and how did you ever manage a walking meditation with “Thay”, as our old friend Steve used to call him?!). I’ve always admired you for the things you were willing to try. I hope it’s bringing you some peace.
OK–this is NOT an attempt to sell anything, or bring attention, or anything like that. It just HAPPENED that, a few days ago (right before I saw your post here), I published a (second) book that came out of a lot of what I “hear.” (I published it anonymously, for obvious reasons). It may or may not be a “synchronicity” that the preface talks about some of the same stuff we’ve mentioned here about refusing to “label” anything, and just listening/watching instead–and about the whole “sanity” thing. I do NOT want you to buy the book (although, as an American, you have the right to do so if you so choose 🙂 ), or even say anything to me about it or acknowledge that you’ve looked at it if you do. I’m not trying to put you in that position at all. But if you want to take a look at the preface, you can do so without having to buy the book by clicking on the “Look Inside”/preview thing over the book’s cover image. Here’s the link:
Again, this is NOT a promotional message (I’m not really promoting the book at all to anyone, in fact, as I doubt that it will be of much use to most people). I really have missed you, and the little community we all kind of put together a few years ago. And I still always remember you and appreciate you as the only person who ever just sat down and read my “crazy” blog all the way through…
I love you too, btw…
Nancy
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