Mar. 27.

Playing with the Tarot

I decided to try to give someone a reading.  I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed my deck of Tarot cards.  I haven’t played with Tarot since high school.  I never really understood what is was about.  I learned several layouts and the book meanings of the cards, but I never was taught about the intuitive aspect.  Now that I have forgotten the layouts and the book meanings, I had a fun, intuitive reading.  Concentrating on the question, I threw a few cards on the table.  Interpretation was purely intuitive.  The pictures, colors, textures of the cards lend themselves well to intuition.  The readings seemed consistent with what we knew, though not always what we would think logically.

Interestingly, the intuitive aspect is the whole piece.  The many layered book meanings of the cards are nice, but the cards are window dressing for the intuition flowing through you.  As I plucked the cards from the nightstand drawer where they slumbered for so long, apprehension filled my brain.  I couldn’t remember all the basic meanings of the cards, let alone the subtle underlying aspects of each.  Pouring them into my open hands, shuffling them as though regular cards, preparing to place them in an elaborate layout, I realized I’d forgotten the layouts.  Panic struck.  With a  mental pause, a few breaths, and a release of the tension building inside me, I recalled that intuition works from a place of love, not fear.  Eyes closed, I flipped out a card onto the bed, then another, continuing until there were six.  It felt right.  I opened my eyes.  Before me the layout became clear.  A couplet of cards laying face up near the middle of the area painted a broad picture of the solution I sought.  I interpreted through the apparent picture of the card, the colors, the symbols.  Another card lay close, but inverted and I intuited it as an opposite and it fit.  Two other cards were sideways at different angles and I felt that gave a degree of meaning based on the degree of sidewaysness.  (Yes, I know it’s not a real word, but it works to communicate the meaning.)  The last card was flipped over onto it’s front.  Turning it over I knew this would be hidden obstacles to the solution.  Logically (does logic even count with intuition?), it worked for me.  I could comprehend the potential semantics.

Working from love, I was able to give the best Tarot readings.  Book meanings? Pah!  Complicated layouts? Phh!  Infinite subtleties? Piffle!  My best Tarot readings came from tossing cards on my bed with my eyes closed and interpreting the meanings intuitively.  Maybe that’s all you really need.  Perhaps that’s how tea readings work…

Why did I even pick up the cards, again?  Because I have had two readings lately, and both readers used Tarot cards to provide focus and information.  My attempts at readings so far have been hopeful.  I am trying various styles.  Each one has it’s own advantages and disadvantages:

I tried automatic writing a while back and was mildly successful.  Some of my answers were on target, but not the the right extent.  Some of them did not feel as helpful, but allowed me to experience my guides’ sense of humor and point of view.  I asked about what was wrong with one of my sons as he was having some health issues.  The answer was nothing is wrong with him, he is perfect, as are we all.  Not very helpful on a practical level, but a good reminder that we are all energetic beings, not physical bodies.

A friend asked me to try a body scan for health issues.  I was able to “see” a spot in her chest and a haze around her abdomen.  She said the spot was Breast Cancer that her doctor had just confirmed.  The haze she attributed to toxicity of her guts that she was going to cleanse with a process that I don’t recall.  That worked well, but I hesitated to find anything as I would like her to only be well.  I was torn between telling her what I saw and telling her she was fine.  No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.  I’m glad she already had the information and was allowing me to “test” my abilities (abilities many of us have and can develop).

Each type of reading can give different results.  Tarot gives me a general overview of a situation and solution.  Automatic Writing provided details, but were laced with my spirit guides’ point of view.  Body Scanning gives health related information, but I will have to practice a lot more to get useful data from it.

Mar. 18.

Article on being an Empath

Here is an interesting article on being highly empathic.  This is what I experience.

“Because of the tendency for people to hide the full story, or try to control the situation, an empath will tend to feel a huge inner conflict or inability to process the enormity of the engagement. One of the main problems for Empaths is the lack of transparency and honesty in the world and the consequent resentment of having to process all the energy that is not in full view.”

– Trinity Bourne (author of the article)

There have been so many conversations where I “end people’s sentences”.  Sometimes I can understand what they want to say before they do themselves.  It greatly facilitates communication most of the time.

Occasionally, however, I would run across someone who was offended that I could figure out what they wanted to say.  They would change what they were saying after I helped, just to prove me wrong.  One of my bosses was like this, it was very frustrating.  We worked in a fast paced environment and she took forever to finish her thoughts.

Wonderfully, there are people who can also communicate energetically.  When you meet these folks, understanding flows so smoothly and effortlessly.  It’s quite blissful.  My wife and I communicate like this most of the time.

“Also it feels very interesting being in shops and towns etc. They’re so designed as to attract and ‘pull at’ people’s attention to buy certain products or at least to look at them. The energy of the matrix feels pretty strong in these places. This has felt overwhelming…”

-Ben (in the comments at the original site)

Going into shops, especially large ones, often leaves me feeling spun out and twisted.  The energy in those place is very chaotic.  When I was a child, my parents would take me to Home and Garden shows and I would often start to pass out.  Eventually, I learned how to close off the energy from others.  That never felt good either.  It was kind of like walking around with noise-cancelling earphones.  One of my senses had to be “turned off”.

http://www.openhandweb.org/040112_being_empath_unfolding_higher_paradigm

– The article referenced

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Mar. 02.

The Early Experiences – Books and Movies

I find myself curious about how I came to my spiritual beliefs.  Most days I believe what I believe and go on about my life.  Some days, however, I wonder how I came to this point.  I think an understanding of my background and what experiences formed my opinions and beliefs might help others on their path through life.  Everyone’s path is different, indeed each person’s whole experience is different.  We all create our own realities.  That was a tough concept for me to grasp at first.  Now it seems obvious.  The difference is experience and a willingness to question.

I think movies came first in my explorative development.  The Witch Mountain movies were thought provoking.  I think most of the kids of the time wished they could move things with their minds.  It was a nice introduction that there may be more to the world than we think.  It certainly made me think.  For those of you not familiar with the movies, they are about two orphans that can speak telepathically.  They have some other abilities that serve to make some people want to exploit them.  Not to give too much away, but they eventually find out why they are “different”.

One of the first authors of non-children’s books that I can remember reading is Anne McCaffrey.  (Isn’t it crazy that I have to be careful how I said that.  I was going to put adult book author, but that has a completely different connotation, doesn’t it?)  I started with the Dragonflight  series and voraciously read anything she wrote.  I loved the telepathic communication between man and dragon.  The book that I remember having the greatest impact at that point, though was: To Ride Pegasus.  It was the book that introduced me to precognition.  The fact that people with all of these various abilities were not superheroes really moved me.  Anne McCaffrey portrays her characters as real people with problems, different than the rest of us, but the same as well.  At least that is how I saw it as a child.

A couple years later, I ran across the first of the Seth books: The Seth Material.  The carefulness of even Jane Roberts and her husband, their disbelief even as it was happening, made this book readable to me.  For all that I may seem open to any type of Metaphysical – New Age – or Woo Woo stuff that’s out there, I am rather skeptical.  Much as I was during my Sunday School classes, I question everything.  However, unlike many people who have had awareness expanding moments and then denied them, I do believe my own experiences.  If I experiment with something like seeing auras, and I see them, then I will accept that auras exist and people can see them.  Seth’s explanations of the universe made sense to me based on what I had experienced in life (little as it had been at that point).  It resonated with me.  It opened my mind to a new way of looking at how life worked.  Basically, it laid a framework (creating your own reality and a connectedness with all things) through which I was able to see life.

I think the movie that really cemented my thoughts on the interconnectedness of all things was The Empire Strikes Back.  In Star Wars, they talk about the Force and it relates to many of the Metaphysical and New Age ideas.  But when Yoda started explaining about how everything is tied together, it made a lot of sense to me based on my own experiences.  When he explained in his cryptic way that you cannot start something and be successful by trying,  you can only be successful by knowing you will succeed, it was eye opening.  I examined my life and could see that when I tried, I usually did not have much success, but when I said to myself, “I can do this”, I had great results.  And I still love the lesson that if you start something knowing it is impossible, you will certainly fail.  I’ve started many tasks in my life that seemed insurmountable by reminding myself that many other people have already done this, so I certainly can, too.  Those tasks seem to almost magically work out.  Frame of mind and intention are what those movies brought to me.  I may have read more into it than what was really there, but that’s basically how guides, angels, and intuition seem to work in our lives.  We receive insight into something that perhaps others do not see.

I am very grateful that I was drawn (guided) to these books and movies in my youth.  I still pull out fascinating bits that expand my awareness of myself and of life out of the books, movies, and music around me.  Connecting it all to real life is the real joy.

Feb. 29.

SoulFood Books and Kay Ridgway

Amazing coincidences today.  I had to carpool with someone into Bellevue today.  She was asking how long she would have to wait for me to finish work.  I got an intuitive hit to mention that she could check out SoulFood Books as neither of us had ever been there.   When she arrived, someone pulled on her jacket.  It was a longtime friend that she was trying to contact earlier today.  Her friend was there to get a reading from Kay, whose classes they had attended a few years ago.  She was also able to find a book (A Book of Angels) for which she had been searching for quite a while.

During a break at work, I was adding new events from Vision Quest Center.  As I did this, the thought came to me that I should try to visit all of the Stores and get readings from more people so I can feel good about adding them to the directory.  (I don’t want to add people that I don’t have some personal knowledge of, unless a friend I trust in these matters recommends them.)

After I heard this story, I wanted to go see the Store.  Kay was still there, and they decided to get a reading.  Kay seemed to be right on target.  Her intuition is good and her answers were in line with my own intuitive thoughts.

So many wonderful coincidences or manifestations.  This is how life is supposed to work.

Feb. 29.

Seeing Auras

Yay!  I finally am able to see auras!  At least, fundamentally.  Barbara Brennan‘s book, Hands of Light, was exactly what I needed.  Interestingly enough, the book made itself known to me several times throughout my life.  Each time, I noticed it peripherally, but didn’t really look at it.  This time, however, it was recommended by Kelmie Blake Spires as one of many books to read to learn about auras.  Having run across it so many times before, it stood out and I began reading it.

My logical brain immediately began making connections with her interpretation.  Her writing style is very logical and therefore easy for me to absorb.  Following the exercises, I began to see auras.  At first, I could only see a little colorless outline that looked luminous.  (The appearance seemed like it would be a glow-in-the-dark luminosity, but when I tried in the dark, I could not see it.)   Now that I have been practicing for a couple of months, I can see the aura out a little farther.  I still do not see colors, which is a little disappointing.  I asked Veronica Entwistle about it at her last meeting (see the Events page to see upcoming events like this), and she said that she sees the colors better when she closes her eyes.  At first, I was skeptical, but as the aura is just energy, it makes sense that you are not seeing it with just your optical receptors.  I haven’t tried it, yet, as it still takes effort for me to see auras.

When I am trying to see an aura, I find I have to change the way my brain feels.  When I finally see an aura, it feels like I am wearing a headband across the top of my head.  Once I feel that, I can see auras pretty easily as I switch from person to person (or cat or plant or whatever).  Practice is required, but finding places to watch people without looking creepy in the process is the real challenge.  Staring strangely at someone for several minutes isn’t what I do best.

Still, I am getting a little better at it each time I try.  I recommend the book.  I have links to it and to the author on the Books page.

Feb. 06.

Many Stores and Events in Seattle

Today, I just learned about a bookshop in Seattle that has been around for many years.  Quest Bookshop is an extension of the Theosophical Society.  I have never run across this before.  It looks interesting.  Their site explains their philosophy.  The organization has been around since 1875!  I just blew a whole hour just poking around their website.

I haven’t been there as yet, but it comes highly recommended by Colette.  We were talking about how difficult it is to learn about the various metaphysical or new age bookstores, events, and practitioners.  There are a lot of us out here exploring our awareness, and it is time we started meeting each other.  I hope finding this site helps you find the resources you are looking for, and perhaps some new friends as well.

Please let me know about other metaphysical, new age, or spiritual (non-religious) stores, events or people.  I would be glad to pass the knowledge on to others.

explorer@exploringawareness.com