Life is Miraculous

Today I was driving around town and had this thought: life is miraculous.  It really is.  Ever since I realized there was a whole another world out there aka the Spirit world, I have never been the same. Once I understood that nothing is random, I pay attention to everything.  Believing this latter concept help me understand that the thoughts, feelings and images that popped in my head meant something.  Up until a year ago I wasn't paying attention to this information.  Now I do and I have become so much wiser and happier because of it.  Not only does it help me, but now I can help others with this information.

Right now the world is changing at a breakneck speed.  You either are aware of it aka "awake" or you are not aka "asleep" or somewhere in between.   How about you?  Are you awake or are you asleep? Today I pulled this card for a client of mine.

There are a group of beautiful unicorns in a forest.  The one in the middle is awake and the rest of the unicorns are asleep.  This card symbolizes the world today.  There are a few who are awake but most people are asleep.  Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the people who are asleep and those that are awake or not "better" than others.  There is no better or worse just experience, different simultaneous experiences.  

When you are awake you realize the following things:

1. The physical world is an illusion and the real world is the spirit world and all the beings within it : passed relatives; angels; Archangels; Ascended Masters like Jesus, Mother Mary or Ghandi; Goddesses like Isis or Aphrodite; unicorns, fairies, elves and other spiritual beings.  
2. These spiritual beings constantly give you messages (like love notes) by leaving coins on the ground, feathers, arranging coincidences, showing you the same numbers over and and over again etc.  
3. When you notice these little things they start to add up.  I have a new friend who is absolutely befuddled that she keeps seeing feathers everywhere.  Of course, these are the angels.  
4. These little "love notes"  are little miracles, they are a reminder to you of who you really are: you are a soul having a human experience.  Your soul is the real you, the wise you, and the one who is aware of your constant connection with the Spirit realm.  
5. In the end, all these little messages add up to a miraculous day and then a miraculous life.  

So do you want to see signs too?  Look for them, they are all around you!  Did you see an unusual animal or insect, look up its meaning as an animal totem.  Did you find a penny on the ground?  Look at the year on it, does it match the year a loved one passed?  It's a message from them that they are OK and they are thinking of you!  Found a feather on your bathroom floor?  Thank the angel who you left it there for you.  Keep seeing the same numbers over and over again on clocks, receipts and license plates? Look up their angel number meanings.  

Because I am always looking for signs, my life has become miraculous.  Everyday is a fun adventure. The "coincidences" can be so funny!  And seeing them and noticing them makes me feel loved and taken care of.  Because I am loved and you are too.  

If you would like to connect with passed loves ones, learn the names of your guardian angels or simply need guidance on life, I can get the answers you want by connecting with Spirit via Tarot and/or Reiki. Please email me if you would like a reading.  

Feel free to comment on this post if you have noticed little messages or love notes that were left for you.  

Understanding Past Lives

For the past year I have been trying different ways to learn about my past lives.  I have believed in reincarnation for a long time.  I could simply not believe in the alternative, which would be one life and that's it.  That didn't make sense to me at all.  We have one life?  Why?  Why not more?  What would be the point of one life?  Plus there is so much evidence to the contrary, such as near death experiences or that precious little boy who saw Jesus in the book, and now TV movie, called Heaven is Real. Recently a little boy remembered how he was murdered in a previous life, you can read about it here.

My first exposure to reincarnation was Buddhist philosophy.  I learned that Buddhists believe that all life is precious, including an insect.  So you shouldn't deliberately step on a bug.  I used to laugh at this especially since I am not fond of bugs.  But now that I have evolved spiritually, I actually think twice!  I ask myself, is it necessary to kill that bug?  Or can I somehow find a way to get it outside?  In fact, I recently did this with a centipede I found in my home.  Sometimes it's unavoidable, when the annual parade of ants enters my kitchen after a rainstorm.  But now, it's not so easy for me to kill them.

When I first learned about Hinduism, they taught that if you were bad in one life, you could be reincarnated as something horrendous, like a slug.  I thought that was an interesting concept, but this didn't resonate with me and sounded like the angry God of Catholicism, so I quickly moved on.

In the past year I have read numerous books on reincarnation, especially information gathered from regression hypnosis from authors like Dr. Brian Weiss, Lois Wetzel or Dolores Cannon.  Up until this point, my simple concept of reincarnation was this:  a soul was contained in a body, when that body died the soul would leave and eventually would occupy another body.  The soul came here to learn lessons or to relearn lessons or make up for mistakes made in past lives.

Here was my problem, if God was perfect and we were made in the image of her than why were we so imperfect? Why do we even have to learn lessons? The answer is the soul is perfect but we forget that we are when we are born in the physical in order to experience life for God and experience who we really are at any given moment.  In fact, I recently learned that a soul is so huge and the vibration so large that it can not be contained in one body, it is more like an enormous energy field.  With this fact in mind, and the fact there is no such thing as time and everything is happening right now, our soul could be having hundreds, perhaps thousands (like I have been told in readings) of lives all at the same time!

In addition, every thought and decision we make (and the various options/consequences) creates a parallel universe where that option is played out!  For example, today I decided to lay out in my yard instead of go to the pool.  But there is a Tina who in a parallel universe that plays out what happened when I go to the pool instead of stay in my yard.

Did I lose you yet?

Let me give you a specific example from my life where I remembered a "past" life that is affecting my "present" one. In fact, in this case my past self is aware of my present self but not vice versa.   I have had neck and shoulder pain since I was child. There was not one thing that triggered it, it just started when I was 11.  By the time I was a teenager, I was trying to sleep on the floor because I thought the crappy beds in my boarding school were hurting my back.  I have been to countless chiropractors and physical therapists.  I have taken a ton of Advil. Dr. Weiss and most other past life regressionists, propose that healing can come from remembering past lives, sometimes very quickly.  So I have tried to remember what they are through hypnosis, meditation or intuitive readings by others.  So far (get ready it's gruesome) I have been mauled by a bear, had my head chopped off, been stoned to death and wore a heavy ibis mask as a Thoth priest in ancient Egypt.  So far remembering these lives has not gotten rid of the back pain for good.

Last weekend I saw my mentor and multi-talented spiritual medium, Shaman and Reiki Master Joy.  I asked her to help me resolve this pain, what else do I need to know?  What else do I need to heal?  She gave me Reiki and had a vision of me as a slave girl with some sort of farming contraption on my shoulders and I was pulling it through earth, like a horse would. She said that this girl is aware of me in my present life and she resents me because she feels like I have an easy life and that she could never be happy. So Joy talked with her to convince her that she could drop that contraption from her shoulders and she no longer needs to carry it, that she can be happy too. She said there was also a fear that once you are happy, it will not last (Joy said every time I have that thought, my back pain may show up again). I admitted that I also felt this way, more so in the past. There is also a future part of myself that is afraid that the happiness won’t last either. So she pulled these two parts of myself into my present body and my angels advised me to “have faith.” Hopefully this will do the trick, otherwise I am open to learning more, and open to further healing.

Today I was thinking about that little slave girl. I want her to know that, in her honor, I will do my best to be happy, and to take nothing for granted. And I remind myself, to not view life as a burden, but a source of joy and happiness.  Release your burden little one, and enjoy life with me!

Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

My husband I recently went on a wonderful escorted tour of several cities in Spain.  We joined an existing tour group in Madrid.  They had been traveling a week together before we joined the group. As part of our group, there were two Catholic nuns traveling together.  We happened to sit next to them during our first dinner.

Toledo, Spain

Now here is some background before I continue the story.  I grew up Catholic.  I went to five years of Catholic school.  I found Catholic school stifling to say the least: sit down, be quiet, don't talk, don't move etc.  Pure obedience was expected.  The teachers that I had in Catholic school taught a lot of fear: fear of God especially.  Oh also that we all born sinners.  I had one nun as a teacher in Catholic school, Sister Mary.  She was tall and thin and from New Hampshire.  She proudly used to tell the story that every Sunday morning in her small town of Littleton, a parade of cars would leave their driveways to head to Catholic service.  Let's just say my opinion of Catholicism is not exactly positive.

So when I met the Catholic nuns on our tour, I had all these preconceived notions on what they were like already.  But I was soon to be proved wrong.  First of all, one of the nuns, Mary Ann, was drinking wine.  I didn't know nuns drank wine!  When she asked me what I did, I told her about my children but I also told her about my Reiki training, interest in crystal healing and the recent moon celebration I attended.  And to my shock she thought all of that was wonderful!

So I get this lesson once in a while, and it has not been my first time: don't judge a book by its cover.  I found Mary Ann refreshing and it gave me hope that even Catholic nuns could be modern and open minded!

What is an Animal Totem?

Nowadays when I see a wild animal, I do not simply see an animal; I try to understand the spiritual significance of that animal.  To me, this is what Animal Totem means.  According to my favorite website on animal totems,

"The animals express the spirit nature of that species and exemplify qualities we can learn from. They are psychological and spiritual symbols that convey to us qualities we are needing or lacking in our daily lives. They are a mirror of us reflecting our own innate qualities to help ourselves better understand our connection to all things."

If you pay attention to nature or simply look around, there are animals everywhere.  When you see the same animal over and over again, you need to pay attention this.  There is a message for you.  If you have an unusual sighting of an animal, pay attention to that too.  I look up that animal or insect at this site http://www.starstuffs.com/animal_totems/index.html. 

Last week I found a large centipede hiding under a paper cup in my basement bathroom.  To be honest, I am not over fond of bugs especially if they end up inside my home.  So I ran the water over it but it was too big to go down the drain.  So I continued to run the water and captured it in a cup and tossed it outside.  Hey, at least I didn’t kill it!  I quickly looked up what a centipede meant here it said,

“Movement into new psychic connections and relationships. Protection against psychic deceptions. Balance, coordination, ability to survive stress, the beauty of coordinated movement.”

So what do I do with this piece of information?  I try to understand how this animal sighting is significant in my life now.  Sometimes it doesn't make sense right away, so I file it away and take a look at it later.  That’s the way Spirit works, you have to pay attention, make note of it and eventually it will make sense.  Like putting puzzles pieces together. 

Today I had the privilege of meeting my animal totem, a black bear.  I was doing a guided meditation as part of an online course called Find Your Calling in the Akashics (you can find this course on the www.dailyom.com).  My animal totem was supposed to appear out of the forest and there it was, a black bear.  I asked the bear its name and it said Mario.  He told me that he is my animal totem because he is a combination of ferociousness and nurturing.  Do I know exactly what this means?  Not really.  Could it be referring to me?  Possibly.  According to my animal totem website, a bear represents:

“Sub/Unconscious mind, strength, grounding, inner energy of soul to find answers, judgments, are you too critical or not critical enough, inner power to taste the honey of life. Bear teaches caution, quiet of the mind and silence within. There is great power in introspection which awakens insights and opportunities. Bears teach leadership, natural healing abilities and defending when necessary. Are you eating a balanced diet? Utilizing your intuition? Being cautious? Brown, black or white, what does the color say to you? Bear will show how to balance and express oneself.”

Isn't it amazing how one animal can represent so many things and deliver such a detailed message?  So pay attention to the animals that appear in your life, look up their significance and learn from the messages they are giving you!

My Guardian Angel

Six months ago I decided to purchase some guided meditations on Amazon.  For years I wanted to meditate but I was always intimidated by the idea.  How could I quiet my mind when my mind was always constantly racing?  Plus I would probably sit there chastising myself for not being able to clear my mind!  So I decided to start with guided meditations.  One of the meditations I downloaded was one to meet your guardian angel.

I have always fantasized about my guardian angel.  Who could it be?  A relative who passed?  Or my dad?  I imagined my guardian angel with me in times of distress but I never consistently thought of him/her.   I imagined that they would show up in life or death situations but I couldn't imagine them being around the mundane happenings in my life.  I always liked the idea of angels but I was never sure they existed.  I really wanted them to be real! Well, little did I know, I was about to find out!

When I began my guardian angel meditation, I laid down in what yogis like to call the corpse pose.

I was never fond of sitting with  my legs crossed.  My feet always fell asleep or my back would start to hurt.  So I started the meditation in the corpse pose and tried to focus on the narrator's words.  She guided me through a garden and eventually to a person.  I could imagine all this well up until this point. As I focused with my mind's eye a.k.a.  my third chakra (centered in the middle of your forehead), a form started to appear before me.  I had no expectations on who it could be.  I even imagined it would be someone I didn't even know.  I couldn't really see the person at first, like he/she was in fog.  This is often called "the veil".  When a medium tries to connect with a spiritual being it's like trying to see through a veil.

When I asked the being who it was, he answered Archangel Gabriel.  Ummm what?!  I laid there in shock.  But the meditation continued so I just followed it.  Then he started to appear more clearly to me. He had long dark brown hair and a blue gown with a roped belt and humongous wings.  I mean huge, a lot of artwork out there does not do it justice!  Later I searched the internet for a picture that resembled him.  This was the closest I could find...

But again his wings were much bigger.  They were probably twice as high as the picture above.  He also had a twinkle in his eye and of course, was very handsome.

I was immediately comfortable with him.  I hugged him and I could see his enormous wings around me. I asked him if he had a message for me.  He said, "Keep doing what you're doing.  You're doing a good job and so many people (in the spirit world) are watching you and they are proud of you."  We didn't talk much after that.  We just enjoyed being together.  We danced and he twirled me around.  He flew into the air and flapped his ginormous wings.  He was simply awesome.

I was actually crying during the meditation and I felt my heart chaka opening.  He felt like a fatherly figure and I felt safe with him.  After the meditation I still couldn't believe it.  I didn't even know that someone's guardian angel could be an Archangel.  For those of you who don't know, Gabriel is in the Bible.  He is the angel who told Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus!  According to Doreen Virtue's book Angels and Ascended Masters, Gabriel is the angel of parents, art and communication. Since I am a parent, an art teacher and a blogger, well that's just about perfect!

Since then I have connected with Gabriel many times.  It's quite easy for me to communicate with him, I simply have to take a few deep breaths and then feel out with my mind if he's there.  He always is.

Why We Should Play With Magic

Have you ever heard of the song by Katy Perry called the Dark Horse?  The lyrics go like this:

I knew you were
You were gonna come to me
And here you are
But you better choose carefully
‘Cause I, I’m capable of anything
Of anything and everything

Make me your Aphrodite
Make me your one and only
But don’t make me your enemy, your enemy, your enemy

So you wanna play with magic
Boy, you should know what you're falling for
Baby do you dare to do this?
Cause I’m coming at you like a dark horse
Are you ready for, ready for
A perfect storm, perfect storm
Cause once you’re mine, once you’re mine
There’s no going back

Mark my words
This love will make you levitate
Like a bird
Like a bird without a cage
But down to earth
If you choose to walk away, don’t walk away

It’s in the palm of your hand now baby
It’s a yes or no, no maybe
So just be sure before you give it all to me
All to me, give it all to me

So you wanna play with magic
Boy, you should know what you're falling for
Baby do you dare to do this?
Cause I’m coming at you like a dark horse
Are you ready for, ready for
A perfect storm, perfect storm
Cause once you’re mine, once you’re mine (love trippin')
There’s no going back

This song plays with a lot of stereotypes about magic: that it's forbidden, that it means putting a sexual spell on men and that it's all powerful.  There is a reason why magic has a bad name and it has to do with female power.

In BC,  people worshiped both both gods and goddesses.  Then 2,000 years ago goddess worship dropped out of sight as Christianity began to grow.  Coincidence?  I think not.  

Part of my spiritual journey is to understand feminine power and one way to do this is to learn about ancient goddesses.  A second way is to embrace my menstrual cycle.  I recently read a book called Moon Time: a Guide to Celebrating Your Menstrual Cycle by Lucy H. Pearce.  I've decided instead of ignoring my cycle and pretending it doesn't exist (i.e. the woman's curse), I would instead try to understand it. Everything contains cycles, the four seasons is a well-known example.  The definition of cycle is a series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order.  And inherent in that definition is that each week varies.  So during any woman's menstrual cycle, each week varies.

Do you remember the commercials that advertised you can do anything during your period, even wear a white bikini?

Like who decided this was a good idea?  In fact, Pearce says that during the "bleeding time" we should be taking it easy.  This is not the week to be doing high energy work or making big decisions.  The week of our periods is the time to regroup. And what does society tell us?  You can do anything during your period.  Don't let it stop you.  But this is not necessarily what is best for women.  And there certainly is no understanding of how cycles work and affect women.  

Did you know that a woman's cycle used to be tied to the moon?  Pearce says that "the most common menstrual pattern is to bleed on the dark moon and to ovulate on the full moon...the 28 day menstrual cycle correlates with the moon's cycle."  How many women out there have a cycle like this?  With the advent of birth control and artificial light (which changes our natural hormonal response to the moonlight) our cycles are all out of wack!

Why is this important and what does this have to do with magic?  The source of feminine power is within the womb.  This is the ultimate source of our creativity, where we grow our babies.  Does this sound like magic to you?  Well it is!  

Other ways that feminine power manifests is in our ability to nurture and use our right-brown power i.e. yes, psychic abilities such as intuition, feeling, thoughts that convey messages for ourselves and others.    

So Katy Perry sings "So you wanna play with magic?  Boy you should know who you're falling for". Go ahead play with magic.  It's not a bad thing and for women, it only comes natural.  No one is going to burn us at the stake for this.  It's safe now.  Embrace your magical female power.  

Helping a Soul Cross Over

I had my second mediumship class with Joy today. Today I focused on connecting with souls that Joy could verify herself.  While I was connecting, I would just receive thoughts or sometimes I would see what I would call pictures in my mind.  One of the souls I connected to was a little girl.  I had the feeling this girl haunted Joy when she herself was a child.  Joy verified this and said that yes, as a little girl she was scared to death of the basement and she had imagined snakes under her bed.  I understood that this little ghost girl was bitten by a snake in the basement and consequently died.  I also knew that she liked to hide in Joy's closet.  Joy said she didn't like to leave her hand or foot dangling over the bed for fear "something" would touch her.

The ghost girl used to play with Joy but Joy did not remember this.  I saw a blue ball that they would play with together, but Joy said she didn't remember that either.  I sensed that the ghost girl was very mischievous, she liked to scare or "play" with Joy.  She said she was sorry for scaring Joy.

I could picture Joy's bedroom...a small twin bed on the right, a window straight ahead and a small closet on the left.  Joy said the only inaccuracy was where the closet was...but she said that she used to change bedrooms in the house so that may explain it.  

I paused at this time when I was not getting any information.  And then I asked myself, is this girl stuck on Earth? I wasn't sure so I asked Joy if she thought the ghost girl was stuck.  She was!  So Joy asked if we should help her cross over.  I enthusiastically said yes!  This time Joy did most of the talking and she asked the girl to look around for the light.  The girl said she was scared and she was afraid of the snakes on the other side.  Joy told her that it was safe on the other side, only love and light.  She asked the girl if she wanted her mother to come and get her.  The girl refused saying she was scared of her mother. Apparently, Joy said the little girl's mother used to lock her in the basement so that was not a good choice.  Joy then asked if her grandmother could come get her and she was also scared of her.  So Joy asked her angels to come get her.  And for a few minutes we both sat in silence.  After a while, I felt light (like a weight had been lifted) and I sensed that the little ghost had gone into the light.  Joy verified that she did.

My soul literally soared after this.  I felt wonderful helping this little girl who was stuck in Joy's childhood home for at least 45 years if not longer!  I am also amazed that Joy could communicate with a the same soul I could.