I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted- but if you’re feeling deprived of Spirit stories, have a listen!! Thanks to Elaine, the host of “Wait, whaaat?” I hope it gives you something new to think about!
Author: Small Medium
Signs
My dad, John Kampsen, could have been president, I swear. He’s the kind of guy that not only is well read, but he will engage in conversation so passionately that it makes you feel…important! He always remembers names, from the whole church congregation to the local gas station attendant. People WANT to be friends with him! He’s a helluva fit 73 years, and will randomly break into Thai chi while asking about your family. Or he may grab a guitar and play one of the finest versions of “twinkle twinkle little star” you’ve ever heard for the kids. He’s magnetic.
The problem is, everyone wants a piece of him, and rarely does anyone get it for long. My grandma, when she was alive, would spend much of our phone calls passive-aggressively mentioning that she hadn’t heard from my dad in months, or that my dad wasn’t coming over for Christmas that year. I would always tell her, “Welcome to the club, Gram!” Although it was probably just as much the other way around; me complaining and her trying to make me feel better by sharing that she, too, was out of the ‘Dad loop.’
Side note: If you’ve followed along with me from the get-go here, you may remember that my dad is also the person that wholeheartedly thinks I’m going to hell for doing mediumship. (I’m SURE he’d argue the semantics of that statement, but that’s the gist.) I remember one time I was so excited to have had another medium explain to me that Jesus himself was a prophet and spoke with the other side- and I excitedly called my dad thinking this would finally be the ticket; our two worlds ARE compatible! Crushingly, his reply was, “you think you’re the same as JESUS?!?!”
The point is, I want more of my Dad. I’ve always wanted more. More phone calls, more visits, more anything. It’s a weird thing to go though life angry that you don’t get enough of a person. It tends to make you feel like you aren’t enough. His passion for cacti and planting is almost certainly why I have way too many potted plants on my windowsills. His love of music is probably why I wanted to learn every instrument I could get my hands on. I wanted to connect with him.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often.
And even more unfortunately, my dad now has really aggressive leukemia.
*******
A few days ago, I had a reading with a young college aged girl. The only thing I knew going into it was that her name is Devon. Come to find out, she lost her older brother, Nick, when she was in high school. It was a wonderful reading, even if I was feeling a bit rusty, because he gave small bits of evidence that, even if it was just a word to me- “Baseball”- Devon would smile and know exactly what he was talking about.
At the end of the reading, Devon’s brother showed me the book “Signs” by Laura Lynn Jackson. I’ve had this book since it came out in 2019, but it’s the first time it has popped up in a reading. I knew he wanted her to read it because he was really going to step up his “sign game” for her, but also wanted to make sure she would recognize when it was happening.
Within a day or two, Devon had already texted me that she’d gotten a sign. She was at a concert and witnessed the exact same scenario I had described in the reading about a guy with curly hair. At the time, we didn’t know what it meant. She offered, “It’s probably my dad, he has curly hair.”
“No, that doesn’t feel right,” I told her. All I was seeing was an outline, but I knew this curly haired guy was younger. I assumed it was a friend of Nick’s, but Devon couldn’t place it.
At the concert, though, as soon as Devon saw this man’s outline, she noticed he was wearing the same logo-ed brand of clothing her brother wore “all the time, but I haven’t seen since.”

terrible picture, but it
made me very happy.”- Devon
It seems so simple –it’s just a kid in a shirt– but I always stress to people, don’t let your own expectations (and just as importantly other’s expectations) dictate what constitutes a sign. Trust that “ting” that you feel! That “ting” is coming from something other than you. Don’t make the mistake of getting a sign that you KNOW deep down IS a sign, and then go “well if it’s REALLY you… blink the lights twice” or something just as silly. It doesn’t work like that. Learn to trust when you get a sign. And remember you dont have to explain (prove) it to anyone. Your connection to your loved one in spirit is as real (and private!) as you want it to be.
****
In the few days after my reading with Devon, I was talking to my sister, Laurel, on the phone. Laurel is a nurse, and thus is familiar with the terms and meds and all the things that are going on with my dad while he goes through chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, and now… Leukemia. This is all in the past year. He and his wife retired, thinking they would finally get to do some traveling in their golden years, and as he put it it, ‘Then Covid hit… and then… Cancer.”
That morning my dad’s wife, Toni, had started texting us updates again. We already knew the cancer was back, but now his picc line to get the next round of chemo was infected. Dad couldn’t seem to catch a break and was back in the hospital. Laurel wondered aloud if she should get in her car and drive to Detroit. She lives in Virginia, so it’s not a quick jaunt, to say the least. She asked if I wanted to get a plane ticket and meet her there. But, we had doubt about going… “dad’s immune system… will the hospital let us in?… will dad and Toni feel burdened with us being there?” We agreed to reassess in the morning.
I then filled Laurel in on the reading with Devon. (Laurel is my biggest Small Medium fan, so I tend to go right to her with all the details. It’s the ONE thing in life that she defers to me for- spiritual guidance- so I usually tell her what I’m reading, what mediations I’m doing, etc.) I quickly mentioned I had seen the book “Signs” as a message. Laurel thanked me for reminding her, as she had the book on her shelf, too, and could see from where she was that it has a bookmark in it, and thus she needed to finish it.
And then we hung up.
I’m telling you, not four minutes later, I get this text from Laurel. She had taken down the Signs book to do a little reading, and this is the page it opened up to. THIS IS WHERE THE BOOKMARK WAS.

This is Laura Lynn Jackson’s book. Here she is talking about *her* dad, John. That *their* relationship was difficult. That *he* played guitar all the time. Laurel and I may have well written this paragraph!!!
After our heads stopped spinning, we both concluded that this indeed was a sign for us. But, what did it mean? Should we drop everything and get to Michigan? Again, we decided to sleep on it and see how we felt the next morning.
The next day, I called Laurel. Our dad was, of course, still in the hospital. “Should we go?” After mulling it over, we decided to wait. Clearly we’d gotten a sign, but did it mean to leave now? Or just that our Dad is up against an unbeatable competitor and we should start planning? What we didn’t want to do was project a sense of urgency to my dad and his wife, and worry them anymore than they already were.
If this was the end of my story, one would tend to think that it was pretty good in and of itself. “What a cool sign!” But NOOOOOOO. Spirit always has another trick up their sleeve!
Within an hour of the phone call with my sister, I received a text from a woman I sort of recently met, Amy. She’s a friend of my cousin, and I met her and her family when they all vacationed together in Austin last year. In chatting with her, we realized we were both into the “woo woo” stuff and have kept in touch every once in a while since. Well, I hadn’t heard from Amy in a few months at least, but that day she sent me this message:

Yeah. If my head was spinning before, it was now rolling down the hallway.
I quickly sent Amy a message back, going “You’re not gonna believe this but…” and I filled her in on what had transpired so far. “I dont wanna spoil anything but late in the book the author talks about her dad, John dying, which is my dads name and…” I gave her the whole rundown.
Let’s also revisit the fact that this book was released three years ago! Its not like it just came out and we are all reading a current NYT bestseller.
I FaceTimed my sister right then basically screaming, “you’re not gonna believe this!” And as we rehashed the whole crazy story, I get a new voice memo from Amy, in which she said:
“Well, Holly, it is a sign for you and Laurel to go to Michigan because when you popped in my head that’s what I was reading. The part about Laura Lynn Jackson’s dad John who is dying. That’s the chapter I was reading when I got the sign to text you and show you the book… fucking weird ass shit, dont you think?!” (That last part is why I really get along with Amy.)
I dont even know what to write here. All I feel is stunned silence. My jaw can’t drop any more. My eyes can’t open any wider. I am just in absolute…. awe. Just when I think Spirit is done stepping up their game with me, VOILA! It’s unreal.
But is isn’t. It’s REAL.
****
I’m a little embarrassed to admit… so far, the wrap up to this story is fairly anti-climactic.
*Sigh*
We have NOT left for Michigan yet.
I know, I know. It seems like I’m not taking my own advice about trusting signs. The thing is, I KNOW its a sign. I’m just not sure it was a sign saying, “get in the car RIGHT NOW.” God, I hope its not, because I’m still sitting at my desk in Texas while my dad is 1,432 miles away. I AM preparing, though. I’m calling my dad more often, I’m saying “I love you” at the end of every call, and I’ve asked him to please let me know when he is OK with me coming out. I told him I will hop on a plane tomorrow if he gives me the go-ahead. I also know that this sign I received is probably just as much of a “don’t listen to him, go anyway” as anything. John Kampsen is as stubborn as he is magnetic, and I can’t imagine the time will ever be “just right” for him to green light our trip. There will always be something.
Maybe, just maybe, the sign here is telling me I just need to take what I need finally, which is time with my dad, John.
The Heavy
Telling these stories can be tricky. In my past posts, I’ve had permission to talk about a reading, or, I’ve been able to tell it vaguely enough that permission wasn’t necessary. This time around, I’m struggling. I did a reading a few months ago that was absolutely jaw dropping, even to me. And of course, those are the types of readings I want to share! But, BUT, this reading was with a friend of the deceased, not the family, AND there are some details to this reading that will make it more than slightly identifiable. Therein lies the problem. Can I write this in a way that everyone retains anonymity? But even moreso, why am I writing this? Is it just for the sensationalism? Just for the Ego? Would telling it serve a higher good than just the WOW factor?
For a while, I couldn’t answer that in a way that kept me satisfied, so I had resigned to keep this one to myself. I could just tell it to friends, knowing it would stay in that circle. At least it wouldn’t be out on the internet!
Well, Spirit has another idea. It has me waking up to thinking about this, it puts it in my head at random times throughout my day… and I think I’ve finally figured out why I need to keep writing this out. To be honest, I’m going to let Spirit guide this one as much as possible, because my Holly brain is still wondering if I’m doing right…
Like always with these sorts of posts, I am not only changing names this time, but I will probably be wishy washy on relationships, too. My first and foremost responsibility is that the family in this scenario cannot be identified, nor can they identify themselves. It is not up to me (or any medium for that matter) to force an event like this on to someone. If the family is meant to hear from this gentleman, they will seek it out, or he will figure out a way. It is not for them to stumble across with google.
I have a friend. Let’s call her “Sandy”. And Sandy has a friend that we shall call “Raven.” Sandy called me one day and said, “you have GOT to read Raven.” Sandy wasn’t going to give me any details, she was just convinced this reading needed to happen.
Raven met with me on a random evening. I had had a busy day and to be honest, may have had a little bit of the ‘party trick” feeling going… like maybe Raven didn’t really NEED a reading, that I was just being trotted out for a bit of ouija board-ish fun, if you will. I also hadn’t done a reading in a couple weeks, so I was feeling “crusty” to say the least. So, I decided to excuse myself for a few minutes to make sure I could quiet my thoughts and get into the zone without prying eyes.
Immediately as I sat alone, I felt this sense of HEAVY. It was as if the air was just pushing down on my shoulders. I knew this was a male, and I knew this male was around the same age as Raven. I didn’t wait for any more information to flow before I went back to Raven and started talking.
“I just feel like its SO HEAVY,” I said, as I pulled my hands down to my shoulders.
“Yep” Raven replied.
(For clarity, Raven and I never had the discussion of who he was. She just knew exactly who I was talking about from the get go. I started talking about “him” and neither of us ever questioned it. For ease of telling this story, let’s also give him a name. I’ll call him “Seth.”)
The heavy continued, and I associated this feeling as a sign of depression. I mean, That’s how sadness usually comes through in readings for me… Life feels heavy! So, I asked Raven, “Was he depressed?”
“I don’t think so…” she replied, confused.
I felt “the heavy” again. There was more that Seth wanted to say about this. And yet every time I would go back to it, my “Holly brain” was looking for the emotional answer… the depression. And, of course, Seth kindly played along…
Seth talked a lot about his family. He made sure Raven knew he trusted her completely with them, and hoped in the future she would be open to giving emotional support to his sibling. THAT was who he was really worried about.
I asked Raven if Seth had been coming to her in her dreams as he was showing me. “Yes! I have had so many dreams where he comes and he just keeps saying ‘I’m ok! I’m ok!’”
Seth then started to talk about his belongings, and I knew it had something to do with how they all got ‘divided up’; that there was something he wanted Raven to have. I asked her if Seth would have been the type to keep a journal.. she wasn’t aware if he did. He told me to tell her that if she was able to read his journal that she would understand him more. And then again, I felt the heavy feeling.
There was much more to this reading, lots of love and information, and it went as well as it could have. But, at the end, after I thought I had wrapped things up with Seth, I just couldn’t shake this nagging question I had… “How did you die!?” Now to be clear, I would usually NEVER ask this. Although, it IS something a lot of other mediums DO mention (as it provides a strong piece of evidence,) it doesn’t usually work for me that way. But this time, I just couldn’t shake it. It’s almost as if Seth wanted me to ask. So ask I did. I looked up to where Seth’s energy was as if I was trying to solve a puzzle- “What happened to you!?”
Immediately Seth showed me himself laying down with loved ones coming to his side to say goodbye. I actually felt it from his perspective, laying down, and I could see people coming to me. This was also with the knowledge that he was like this for about three days.
Processing this in my Holly brain, I asked Raven, “Was he in the hospital before he died?” Raven looked confused. “I see him laying down for three days with everyone coming to say goodbye.”
Raven replied, “No, but I can understand why you’d say that.”
At this point, I clearly wasn’t getting what Seth was putting down. If you are laying down somewhere with people coming to say goodbye, and it’s NOT the hospital…. HUH?
“He died in the Surfside building collapse in Florida,” Raven told me.
Oh my god. OF COURSE. THE HEAVY.
I still get chills when I say it. Seth had been showing me exactly what had happened to him the whole time.
******
Now, here’s where I should mention, A) the number one rule of Mediumship is to do no harm. So, if I had known that “laying there for three days” would correspond to being buried under the rubble I would have never repeated it. Yet B) I also think this is why I’m supposed to tell this story. Yes, the three days thing seems like a horrible detail. But, it wasn’t given to me that way at all. In fact, remember how I mentioned Seth showed it to me from his perspective? Well, I felt nothing but peace laying there. He KNEW people were there and sending him love. And it was why Seth kept coming to Raven in her dreams- to make sure she KNEW he was OK, despite departing in such a seemingly tragic way.
I know I’ve done a post before about “suffering,” but clearly we all need to be reminded of this. Our loved ones who have passed have also moved on from their passing! Lately, I’ve been likening it to childbirth. Many of us have been through some SERIOUS pain birthing children. And some of us for multiple days even! But months later, can you imagine having anguish about the childbirth pain someone went through? “Oh Krista, your baby is beautiful but my goodness,” sobbing “I am SOOO sorry about the horrible labor pains and the episiotomy!” Krista would be like, “I’m fine! I mean yeah it sucked for a minute but its all good now!”
That is EXACTLY what its like for those on the other side. The act of death, and especially the physical pain of death, means nothing because THEY ARE FINE NOW.
***
Lastly, remember where Seth talked about keeping a journal? Well, about a week after this reading, Raven got a call from Seth’s sibling, who out of the blue told Raven that they had found Seth’s journal and that she was welcome to read it.
“See if it works”
An old friend reached out a few weeks ago for a reading, and I am so glad she did. At that point, I had been traveling way more than normal, and mediumship had been forced to take a back seat. So, let’s just say, I wasn’t exactly giddy to make the appointment. I agreed to the reading, but set her up a few weeks down the line to make sure I had time to get my head on straight. And as you can tell by my description, “an old friend,” I also knew her… and in this particular case, I had even met the mother I knew she was hoping to connect with.
If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it now- knowing the client can make readings very difficult. I mean, you KNOW their stuff! This brings up two scenarios- How can the client trust that I am actually getting info from their loved one, and it wasn’t something I already knew? (The whole “well you could have found that on my facebook” scenario.) But also, how can *I* trust that the information I’m getting from Spirit is actually from Spirit, and not from a random memory I’d filed away?
The answer is, there is no definitive answer. But it helps that I’ve gotten better at not worrying about what the client may or may not trust. Its up to their loved ones that want to come through to bring up information or have me say things that they know will resonate. And I’ve applied that same theory for myself as well. It’s up to the Spirit team to give me information that I’ve never heard or had no way of knowing. It goes further than “they had a red car” or “she wore wire rimmed glasses.” It might be a shared memory, or even a specific phrase, which is exactly what happened with my “old friend.”
We shall now move on from “old friend” because she has an actual name- Cherie. Ha! Cherie and I don’t chat much outside of FB comments, so my knowledge of her life is fairly limited. Still, I knew the big stuff. She’s married with three kids, and I even already knew how her mom had passed. Anyway, Cherie and I met up on zoom yesterday at 3pm, and let me tell you, I was prepping this noggin at noon. Somehow I managed to pass three hours, alternatively quieting my mind and asking my Spirit crew for help, and it felt like minutes. Its not hard to concentrate, though, when I recognize the weight of the situation and my responsibility to it. Think about it- this woman has been patiently waiting for weeks for this appointment to TALK TO HER PARENTS… that are not alive anymore. I CANNOT f**k this up. You know? That’s HEAVY.
(Quick aside, I called Cherie today to confirm some details, and she told me, “I was a skeptic until now! My mom knew I didn’t really believe in this stuff!” And then I sighed a big sigh of relief and said, “I am SO glad I didn’t know that beforehand!”)
By the time we started the reading, I was actually excited. I felt like the one piece of the equation that could fail, ME, was in a good mental space and ready. BUT, there’s still that part of knowing too much, and so when I sensed her mom in my aura, I definitely took a few extra seconds to make sure. Luckily, I think my spirit team “gets” this, and will almost always bring in someone else I don’t know, to basically usher in the spirit I do know. It worked like this in Cherie’s case… I could feel her mother up and to my left (not that that matters- it’s just interesting) and then I could sense HER mother, up more towards the center. I knew then that I was going to connect with the grandmother first, but I could also sense grandmother’s husband as well as Cherie’s father. My highly professional illustration should really sort this out:

I turned my attention to Cherie’s grandmother, who gave a few bits of information about being stricter with her sons, and even mentioned one son in particular, that he would have been the “bad boy” of the group- gotten away with more, but was also the “favorite.” As grandma was blending with me, I could also feel mom blending as well. It was as if their Spirit lines were getting crossed. I now realize that the info I was getting at that point rang true for both of them: “multiple sons,” and then bringing up one son in particular. In grandmas situation, it was regarding her youngest son that had also passed away. In Mom’s messages, it was regarding Cherie’s middle son, one she was extremely close to. (These details may be confusing and probably unnecessary – but I want to point it out because it’s something I need to work on!)
After just a few minutes, Grandma stepped back to allow Mom to come in fully. I turned my attention to Mom, and could tell she was apprehensive. I could feel how big this moment was for her, so much so that I struggled to contain my own emotions. She had been waiting for this moment, but wanted to make sure it was right- as in, she also wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to f**k this up! When she finally blended with me fully, it was intense. I could feel how overcome she was to finally connect with her daughter.
Initially, Mom gave me the feeling of being shocked by her own death. She passed after complications from a heart transplant, which in hindsight we can agree is risky, but to her it was completely unexpected. She gave me the feeling that she was ready to live for 200 years! She told me that she was at first uneasy with passing because she was such a helper to everyone, but then she saw that everyone did manage without her, and she was very pleased.
I then kept hearing “Shaan Shaan Shaan,” which I already knew is Cherie’s child. Again, this is where it gets hard, because I already KNOW this information, so the name itself wasn’t evidence. But when I told Cherie what I was hearing, she said, “Oh my God” out loud. Mom said she was worried about him the most, and also brought up him playing a sport. I really struggled with this part of the message, as I could tell she was showing me something specific about Shaan and this sport – as if there was a moment she wanted to me to recognize. I never could quite put it together. It was only AFTER the reading, I found out that Shaan had begged Cherie to be there for it, but she has insisted he go to his lacrosse practice. So he was AT practice, and his grandmother was trying so hard to explain that to me. (Just shows me some of the info I can get better at clarifying. I still have lots of work to do!)

Cherie’s mom then showed me a watch on her wrist, and I knew that her being in the hospital was a significant piece of the information related to this. I kept trying to get more (again, I’ll get better!) but all I could get was that she was in the hospital with this watch, and was taking it off and giving it to Cherie. Thinking this was pretty generic, I told Cherie sort of with a shrug in my shoulders. ‘She’s showing me this watch. She in the hospital with it and she’s taking it off to give to you.” Cherie then said, “well she did have a watch, and I have it, not my sister.” Later she clarified with a text, “This is the watch on my bathroom vanity I see everyday. The transplant team gave it to my mom after her heart transplant. She told me to take it.”


Some of the other things Mom was telling me also seemed of the generic fare, so I wasn’t going back to Cherie often and asking for clarity or acknowledgement. For example, Mom went on to thank Cherie’s husband- described him as a totem pole of strength for the family to lean on after her passing. She then also showed me a visiual of Cherie seated and leaning over, immersed in a moment of remembrance and sorrow. Mom showed me that at those moments, she is kneeling down in front of Cherie holding her hands, looking right up at her. Now, this is one of those times that the info can seem generic, but Spirit manages to slip some real evidence in. I could tell Mom wanted me to delve into this further. So instead of just moving on to the next bit of info, Spirit gives you this cue that “you’re not there yet.” So I knew there was more to this. I then felt Mom was frustrated because Cherie’s mind had been too “busy” for Mom to get through. I could tell Mom was trying, but Cherie wasn’t recognizing it. And this is where it becomes evidential for me- because 9 times out of 10, my client will say, “oh i feel them around me all the time! I know they’re here!”- but I knew this was not the case for Cherie.
I asked and she confirmed, “No I never feel like that!” So what her mom was doing was not giving me a memory of Cherie, but handing out instructions on HOW to feel her, how to connect. (This is good info for all of us! Are you ready? Take notes if you must!) If you want to feel your loved ones from the other side, take the time to sit and THINK of them! Get yourself away from distractions and remember! (Heck, Cherie’s mom was encouraging Cherie to go into the bathroom and close the door so she could have that time!) Let yourself be taken over by the emotions. We try so hard to pack it away sometimes so we don’t feel the sadness, but we NEED to FEEL. And it is in those moments where they are closest to us. And- and this is a big one for me– give yourself permission to believe. It doesn’t have to be that the lights flicker on and off, or a plate flies across the room… give yourself permission to believe that the subtle shift of energy you might feel, or even just that knowing in your gut, means they are with you right then.
One of the final pieces of evidence Cherie’s mom gave, again, didn’t seem like evidence at all at first. Mom showed me a bird of prey, almost like a falcon face, and compared herself to this bird…How she felt so able bodied and strong now. She had me repeat to Cherie, “I am not meek. I am in charge. You’d be proud of me. I’m being very proactive, not reactive.” I was merrily repeating these “generic” words when Mom stopped. I waited for more but she made me feel that she wasn’t moving on until I went and confirmed this with Cherie. So I did- “Cherie, do you understand that? That she’s being proactive now and not reactive? She’s not moving on until I acknowledge this with you…”
Cherie’s eyes were wide and she laughed and said, “I used to get so mad at her and tell her, ‘You need to be more proactive and not reactive!’ I would use those EXACT words!”
(And that, my friend, is the kind of stuff I haven’t seen on FB or stored in the recesses of my brain. Thank you, Spirit!)
We were finishing up the reading, and in a moment of being distracted, I decided the candle I was burning needed to get put out. So I blew it out and as I did I heard “red.” I stayed staring at the candle for a second, trying to get more, when my attention was pulled to the corner of my computer screen. Cherie was wearing a red shirt. “Well that’s CERTAINLY not evidence” I thought to myself – but at the same time, I knew “red” didn’t come from my own mind. “I know you’re wearing a red sweater, but I just got the word red, and I don’t know what that means,” I told her. Cherie then explained that her mother used to tell her that red was a bad color for Cherie (or anyone!) to wear, that it would bring her bad luck. And here she was wearing it on the day of the reading! Haha! Mom clearly couldn’t let that one slide…
As Cherie and I finally wrapped things up, she told me something that was extremely touching, and I will never forget the pride I felt for what I am able to do. Cherie said that before her moms surgery that they had spoken about the possibility that things could go wrong. And Cherie told her mom about what I do, and that someday when she does go, whenever that is, that Cherie is going to “reach out to Holly and see if it works” and that meant Mom had to “find Holly somehow.”
Well, she found me.
And it worked. ❤️
Mishmash
I sat down to write about an experience from this summer (coming SOON) and I came upon this short post in my drafts from last summer. Whoops! I posted it on my FB page a while back but I forgot to post it here. This one gives me the happies. Anywhoo, enjoy!
***
As you may know, we recently moved from Connecticut back to Texas. Well, the new owners of our CT house are very nice and we got to chatting a bit over the course of the transaction. I told them that they would definitely run into people in our small town who would tell them how much they loved the previous owner, Cynthia. Cynthia was a longtime local, the original owner of the home, and lived alone. She had a beautiful garden and sometimes ran the property as a bed and breakfast. She was also known to bake and hand deliver treats for many of the locals. She apparently died in the home and was sorely missed.
The new owners have kept me in the loop of the changes they’ve made, including finally planting in the vegetable garden. (I had never done this, but I did plant some beautiful Zinnias out front to pretty it up.) Cut to a few days ago- I got a frantic text from one of the owners that the water wasn’t working. We ended up FaceTiming and I walked him through the well and filtration system in the basement. At the end, he mentions that, indeed, at least twice a week he runs into people who talk to him about how great Cynthia was.
The new owners voice then went a little lower, and he said to me, “You know, my assistant is a little ‘new-agey’, and she asked me the other day, ‘Who’s Cynthia? Who’s Cynthia?’ I was confused and then she said she just had to finally mention the orb that had been following me around.”
“She then said, ‘Well this orb is Cynthia and she’s saying that she was really sad the old family had to go, and she was worried about you at first, but now she’s really excited.’”
THEN he said that his two boys had already told him the upstairs of the house was haunted. I sort of giggled, because at times you can hear squirrels or raccoons on the roof. I was sure the poor kids had been hearing that. I asked, “What made them think it’s haunted?”
“They saw a spirit in the bedroom!” he answered. He said he just passed it off as kids being kids until the “Cynthia Orb” situation.
The good news is, they aren’t scared. If anything, it seems like everyone is happy that Cynthia is happy! The bad news- I am SOO jealous! Haha!! Maybe Cynthia will come visit me too?
It’s the little things
I am sitting alone, waiting for my daughter to get home from Shea’s funeral. (I thought hiding the details for this story, but something doesn’t feel right about changing things.)
Shea died in March, not long after the Coronavirus hit, leaving his family struggling to find a way to grieve without a proper funeral. Shea was a high school junior, one of the quieter ones of the friends that would come over, and a talented piano player (I would learn later on.) What stands out for me with his passing, is not only was he a friend of my daughter’s, but that I had also given him a reading a few months before the accident.
Maybe it was December, could have been January or even November… but Shea had come over to my house with his friend Aidan for individual readings. I knew Aidan much better, and he had many times expressed his interest in what I “do.” He was kind of scared, though; worried about the heebie jeebies of the unknown. I laughed and assured him he was safe, but I think he may have recruited Shea to come along for his own reading as backup.
I sat on the couch, and actually pulled my hood over my face to try to get into my zone. I don’t think this helped the heeby jeebie factor, as Aiden later told me he had taken a picture of me sitting like that and sent it to my daughter, as in “what the heck is happening!?” It worked, though, as I brought through loved ones for both of them, and answered as many questions as they had. They were both thankful, and as much as I could tell, “wowed” by the experience. I think I even got some tears out of a couple teenaged boys! Now that’s saying something!

***
We got the call from my daughter that Shea had been in an accident and was hurt, and I remember my first thought being “maybe he broke both legs.” Even hearing that he was lifeflighted, somehow that was as bad as I could imagine it. So, when later that night the talk turned to “life support,” it was shocking. It didn’t take long for the news to turn even grimmer. There wasn’t much hope. I heard that Shea was on life support mostly to give his loved ones time to come and say goodbye to his physical body.
If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll understand that I make that distinction very purposefully. Shea, the physical body of a still growing teenager with the rosy cheeks and blond hair that we can touch and see and is gone, yes. But Shea, the PERSON, the SPIRIT that resided in that body, is not. And I don’t say that with a general rule of thumb attitude. No… I say that because Shea himself let me know he’s still around.
A few days later, Shea was still at the hospital. My daughter was getting some conflicted information on when life support would cease, but we knew it was imminent. Again, this wasn’t long after COVID was in full force in NY and CT, so we were in strict lockdown. My family and I were all at the dinner table doing a puzzle this particular night. My COVID days have mixed together, so again, I can’t tell you if it was Saturday or Sunday, but I remember I was sitting there with a glass of Cabernet, and my job was to weed out the puzzle edges. We were laughing and had Alexa playing an assortment of music.
As I was studying the pieces, I felt a strong pressure in/on my right ear. This has happened before, and I’ve probably already described this feeling… it’s as if an airplane takes you to 40k feet and your ears so badly need to pop! But, this is only in only one ear. Having had this as a sign from Spirit before, and also KNOWING this was Shea, my first inclination was to glance at my watch, thinking he was giving me his exact moment of passing. But as soon as I registered the time, I got the message to pay attention to the music that was playing.
The song was “American Pie.” Like, drove-my-Chevy-to-the-levy American Pie. But, it was as if Shea had come to me at the precise moment he wanted to, a spiritual picking up and dropping down of the needle on the vinyl… because as soon as I listened I heard, “this will be the day that I die… this will be the day that I die…”
I remember stopping everything for this moment in time with him, trying my best to get what he was giving. What was he telling me? Was there a message? As soon I asked the question, the answer became clear. Shea showed me just a spiritual tap on the shoulder. He was just passing through, and wanted me to know that he now knew, too. I have no doubt Shea will try to let his loved ones know he is still around when the right time comes, but what I’m excited about, is that he knows he CAN. It was a quick goodbye and hello at the same time, and I will be forever honored that he took the time to give it to little ol’ me.
So as I sit here, waiting for my daughter to come home, I am again taking delight in the little things. It wasn’t a formal reading, it wasn’t in the midst of a meditation… it was just… a hello from the spirit world at such an unexpected moment.
*** I can’t tell Shea’s story. But his family passed out bags of #SheaStones today at his funeral. Those who loved him are encouraged to leave a stone when they go somewhere or see something that reminds them of Shea. I believe his story will continue to be told by others… aren’t they lovely “little things?”


Ghost School- Round Two
“Get a communicator.”
These were the instructions uttered to me by super-medium Chris Drew as I stood in front of 15 classmates. He wanted to me connect to the spirit world in an instant, and see who had come to chat for this exercise. Up to a week ago, these words would have crippled me into a ball of anxiety, but this time, I simply closed my eyes for a few seconds, and replied, “I have a man.”
“He feels like a cousin or a friend,” I continued, “and now he’s standing in front of me. He’s thin and wore black clothes, kind of like what we would call ’emo” dressing.” (I was quite proud of myself.)
“Well was he a cousin or a friend?” the teacher prodded.
Wha? I have to narrow this down right away? I went back into my zone. I had to see which one seemed more natural to me… which of those choices “felt” right. I confidently stated, “He was a friend.”
“Ok. Now go direct.” Chris was now asking me to feel out which person in the small classroom audience this person was here for. I scanned the room slowly until I felt my eyes quickly darting back to a 30-something year old guy in the room. I started to give this man some more of the traits of the spirit. They were minor details, but the guy looked perplexed; this information was NOT resonating with him.
The teacher cut in to guide me, “So if the information doesn’t seem to be flowing naturally, you’re probably with the wrong person. See if anyone else in the audience can take that information.”
I asked the audience if any of them knew a man like I was describing. Two people raised their hands. One was a quiet woman in my class, and the other… Chris Drew, THE TEACHER. (Seriously?)
Chris coddled me along, “Again, repeat the information you have to each of us, and as you do, feel into who seems like the recipient you should be with.”
I repeated what I had to Chris, giving the information like bulletpoints.
“This was a male friend.”
“Ok,” the teacher confirmed.
“He didn’t have a lot of friends- you were very special to him. You treated him with kindness.”
“Yes, I can take that.”
“You met in your twenties.”
“Yes, we did. Now go to their other person that raised their hand and see how it feels when you tell it to them.”
I turned to the quiet woman and started to speak, “This was a male friend,” but as a I said the last word I knew in my gut this wasn’t for her. I felt pulled to turn back around to the teacher. “I’m so sorry but this is not for you. I need to go back to Chris,” I told her apologetically. It was as stereotypical of a “gut feeling” as I can tell you. That was how I’d describe it. I just KNEW.
I proceeded to tell Chris the details his friend was giving me- about how he’d felt jealousy as he watched those around him move on in life while he felt stuck. About how he’d felt rage when he was abandoned by his parents. (“ABANDONED” actually flashed in my mind as a written word when the spirit conveyed this to me.) This exercise in particular was about feeling emotions, so the spirit that came through did just that for me. He had me feel his rage, his jealousy, end even his empathy. We ended on a high note as Chris confirmed all of it and said that his buddy comes through quite often to help with teaching.
This story is quite representative of what I did ALL week at Arthur Findlay college, the place I lovingly refer to as “ghost school.” I went for a 7 day class at the end of November, leaving the day after Thanksgiving straight for London. (Did I say straight? It wasn’t even REMOTELY straight. I flew Dallas to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to London. And if you’re following along on a map, that was the opposite of time efficient traveling. But, BUT- it only cost me 30K miles, so…)
I basically just want to recount some of the little stories and events that happened to me that week that I really want to remember, so don’t mind the “messiness” of this post. It’s likely to skip around quite a bit.
That said, let’s skip, shall we?
Super-medium Chris Drew actually set this course up. So it was him and a few other super-mediums teaching all week. When we arrived on campus, Chris interviewed us individually to see who’s class we’d fit in to. It’s sort of a long story, but let me just say, the gods were WITH me when I landed Lynn Probert as my main teacher. In fact, Chris was initially a bit worried about putting me in her group. (Backstory: this class was advertised as “no absolute beginners.”) “Everyone else in that group is a working medium,” he told me. “Im afraid you’ll feel like you’re in over your head and get discouraged.”
My mouth may have spoken, “I’ll be fine,” but my insides churned with insecurity.
***
Our session with Lynn on the first night was mostly just introductions and her assessing where we were with our mediumship. I was relieved when almost all of my classmates echoed the same concerns I had. I learned that “lack of confidence” rears its head for even the most practiced mediums. Also, a few of them seemed to be in the same boat I was- they were practicing mediumship (with other mediums) but not PRACTICING mediumship (as in giving readings to actual clients.) Whew! Because of this, I didn’t feel so bad in admitting to Lynn that I wasn’t even confident in the most basic of mediumship: establishing a contact. I mean, I knew I could do it, but like I’ve explained before, it is maddeningly subtle, and sometimes (meh, MOST, times) it can feel like I’m just making it up.
Lynn sat with me and gave me what was probably my most important lesson of the whole trip. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something like, “Sit quietly, expand your aura all around you. Then instead of looking for someone to communicate with, let them come to you. See who joins you.”
And by golly- it worked.
The first time, there was no mistaking a man who arrived as a small rectangle of energy at the top left of my head. Later that day it was a woman who came in to the lower right. It was an “aha!” moment that I’m sure I will continue to use as long as I’m doing this work.
One of the things I find fascinating about mediumship is the variances in which Spirit “does their thing.” From how they arrive, (right? Left? Full body visual? Just a face? In the same pose as an old photograph?) to how they give their information (a picture? A feeling? A word spelled out?) Spirit arriving in my aura turned out to be no different… that is, pretty much different every time.
For example, the third day of class, one of our exercises was to stand up and do a “mini demonstration.” We were to get into groups of four where one of us stands up and does a reading for the other three. (We wouldn’t know who it’s for, of course, until the recipient “claimed” their person.) I stood up and gave myself a few seconds to just feel who might come forward, and as I did, a small little older man just walked right into the back of my body. Yep, just like the movies! Just stepped right up and in. And from this, I knew he was small in stature. (I’m almost 5’2, and he pretty much fit right in with my height.) In fact, in one fell swoop I knew what he looked like, what he was wearing, and who he was. I ended up doing a very successful reading for a woman from her father. It was so fun!
Our week was back to back exercises, each one being just a bit different. The thought is that the Spirit world knows exactly what we are doing and wants to help in each instance, so they will give us the information we ask for. Remember how the first reading I mentioned was about getting emotions from the Spirit communicator? Well, we also did one where we were to start the reading with only a place. We had to describe things like climate and vacations.
Another one, and actually one of my more memorable readings, was where we were to try to hold something, or have the spirit make us actually FEEL something in our grasp. This could feasibly be feeling the petals of a flower, the edges of a diamond ring, or in my case… the burning and breaking of the Spirit’s hands.
(Yes, I know this is serious stuff, but as I type this out I cant help but think of a recurring Saturday Night Live skit where three people are abducted by aliens. Each time, two of them have beautiful life affirming experiences, but Kate McKinnon’s character tells government agents the tales of, ahem, other things that happen to her.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELDEdMbkyg
So while others were feeling the brush of a child’s cheek, or the texture of a mother’s scarf, my hands were on fire. Ha! (I know that sounds scary, but it wasn’t actually painful.) The reading started with a few details just so the woman knew it was her male cousin coming through. I then told her I could feel burning on my hands, a detail she didn’t understand. I tried to feel it again and I could tell it felt like some sort of chemical burn on my skin. He had “died in an accident,” she told me, information she offered up because she wasn’t making a connection with what I was feeling. I felt back into it and actually had a quick visual of bones in my forearms and hands being broken. I received the information and told her this was an automobile accident and that he was the only one involved, which she confirmed.
Closing my eyes again, I saw a tree. I got a quick knowing that he had hit it, but I felt uneasy giving such a specific piece of information that could SO EASILY be wrong. (This is why I have to practice! I need confidence, people!) I finally decided to go with it: “Did he hit a tree?” I asked her. She confirmed he had. (My insides scream, “He DID hit a tree?! What are the CHANCES!?” I wanted to jump out of the chair and start high fiving the whole class- which, to clarify, would have BEEN THE WRONG THING TO DO.) I still had a mystery to figure out, though, so again I asked this spirit cousin for more information. He let me know that the impact from the tree and the steering wheel caused his hands and forearms to break, and that there was a fire in the car that he couldn’t escape from. I hated to relay this information to her, but I did so as gently as possible. As it turned out, she couldn’t confirm many more details of the crash or his injuries. But I knew they were correct, and Spirit had amazed me yet again by working with me on a specific exercise, allowing me to “feel” with my hands, even when it wasn’t pertinent to their loved one.
*****
Also, I’m changing my answer. The ACTUAL biggest thing I took from my week at intermediate ghost school?
“JUST SAY IT.”
I usually spend so much time in my own head working through the information that spirit gives me, trying to make it fit in a pattern I understand. Like the tree example I just talked about. I sat there for ten too many seconds wondering if the information “sounded” plausible. But the thing is, I dont have to understand it. The only person that needs to understand what the spirit is saying is the person I am reading for.
I’ll give you a quick example of this- where I wanted to kick myself after a reading, in which if I had just said what I’d been shown, the sitter would have understood the message. Early on in the week, I was exchanging readings with one of my new friends and classmates. I brought through her Grandmother, who showed me a purple stone. I was describing the stone to my friend and asked if she knew what this was. She told me that she did indeed have a purple stone, but that it had nothing to do with her grandmother. Both of us confused, I looked back into it. Immediately, the Grandmother showed me herself handing this purple stone to my friend’s young daughter.
BUT I DIDN’T SAY THAT.
All I told my friend was, “Your grandmother is bringing my attention to your daughter now.” Again, we were both a bit perplexed. When our time was up, my friend told me what the purple stone was. Turns out, she has a purple stone at her house, and the day before she was leaving her daughter pointed it out and asked her mom to bring her back “one of these.”
So, we had BOTH just spent ten minutes trying to figure out what the heck I was talking about, and the answer was right there for the taking all along. Grandma was gifting a stone to her granddaughter- and I didn’t mention it. (This actually WAS an instance where I stood up in the class frustrated with myself and way too loudly exclaimed, “You’ve GOT to be KIDDING me!)
***
Aside from the amazing new people in my spiritual circle, Mediumship school was a chance for me to get these experiences in rapid succession, for a whole week, with almost no downtime in between. That, of course, is the exact opposite of what happens when I’m at home, which keeps me feeling like I’m never in the groove.
So… how do I remedy that? By finally opening up for readings. And I figured I’d put it out there to those that are interested in my adventures first, the blog readers!
Interested? Dont worry about location. Through a lot of practice, I’ve found that online readings via Facetime (or Zoom) are just as good as in person (Spirit knows how to work it!) If you trust me to try to bring through your loved one, I’m up for giving it a go. I’ve set aside a few times each week and will continue this for a couple months. Send me an email and we can try to set something up: Hollypaulson@mac.com. Let’s do this, together!
***
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but you know how some people see recurring numbers/times? Well, oddly enough mine is 9/11. I’m always seeing some version of that- and spirit always makes sure I look at the clock at that time. (My birthday is 9/12, so you’d think it would have been those numbers- but… it isn’t.) Anyway- I was heading home from London Heathrow -having my last true English breakfast at the airport (back bacon RULES,) when I had the grand idea of using the rest of the UK cash I had and just putting the rest on my credit card. I dumped it all out on the table and painstakingly counted it. (Takes forever when you don’t know what’s what!)
Guess how much I had? Exactly 9 pounds and 11 pence. And that was the SECOND time I said out loud, “You’ve got to be KIDDING me.”
UPDATE: EEK! It has been brought to my attention that the change in the image actually equals “£7.13p. The brown 2 you have gathered with the £1 coins is a 2p not a £2.” (RATS! I told you counting this wasn’t easy.)
So yes, I counted wrong, But I STILL think Spirit had something to do with this. What I didn’t write earlier was that originally I had emptied my purse of all the change and it only totaled (what I thought was) £9.01. I didn’t think anything of it. But, two minutes later I went back into my purse for something, and lo’ and behold, in the pocket that I had JUST cleaned out was a 10p piece. Call it a stretch if you want, but I really do think Spirit went, “this silly girl thinks that’s £9.01. Let’s give her another 10p to really flip her out.” I’m telling you it was as if that dime appeared out of nowhere. So I’m sticking to my story. The only thing I feel bad about is that the poor waitress was bilked out of 2 quid!
But did they Suffer?
Before I get into the juicy bits, I need to offer a quick recap of the last year. I’ll make this quick, promise! I’m still in the learning/pre-professional medium stages. I continue to have experiences with the other side, but usually I’m simply practicing online with other mediums. We trade readings with each other to hone our skills, and it’s extremely helpful! BUT, I find this to be harder, actually, than readings with “normal” folks. As an example, and it may sound silly, but I talk to my grandparents every week; There isn’t a lot unsaid at this point. So, naturally, I find that the spirits coming through aren’t doing so with a lot of urgency because, like I said, my medium friends and I talk to them all the time! If you’ve been following along, you know that’s a lot different than most of my readings in the past… i.e. those ones that tend to come out of nowhere and hit me with a hard shot of anxiety. I now know that means someone up there is tapping me on the shoulder to stop what I’m doing and listen, ’cause they’ve got something important to say!
That said, the prospect of doing readings for people (people who REALLY need it) is scary for sure. When someone puts their trust in me to bring their loved ones through, the responsibility I feel to make sure I am getting it right can be overwhelming. (Which is why I’m still merely practicing!) SO, as a rule, I have made it my mission to simply convey what a spirit is telling me as best I can. I trust that they know what their loved one needs to hear, and will try their best to get that across through me.
Which brings me to tonight’s fireside chat. How many times have you heard someone hoping that a person who passed didn’t suffer? It’s a common human sentiment- we want to think they passed quickly, or even better, that they didn’t even know it was happening! Makes complete sense.
But I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t matter.
This epiphany all started with a reading I recently did for an old high school friend, Kat. She had lost her husband within the past year, and had been posting about her experiences/feelings of being a new widow on Facebook. Her openness gave me the green light to send her a message offering some words of support. We had traded a few texts back and forth when all of a sudden… BLAM. The anxiety hit HARD. Thank goodness I knew from enough past encounters to know exactly what this was. And I also knew from intuition WHO it was. It was my friend’s husband, Brad.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I couldn’t grab a pen and paper fast enough. I was on the verge of what I imagine a panic attack would feel like- and when I did finally have writing tools in hand- the information flowed fast and furious. I ended up with two pages of single spaced notes within a few minutes. The anxiety subsided once I had transcribed what Brad was telling me, but it wasn’t until I finally sat with Kat over FaceTime that I really assessed what her husband had conveyed. The first 1/2 page, a full 25% of my notes, was all about what was happening to Brad when he was dying. I felt uncomfortable reading it back to her. At the time it was coming through, I was simply a vessel writing the information as it came. But as I read it back, I sat there thinking “is all this necessary? Why would Kat need to hear this?” To this day, she never did clarify what exactly it was that took Brad’s life, but I could gather from the information it was probably a stroke, or something along those lines. Brad had went into great detail about what his death felt like, how his right arm had been numb, and even made sure to tell me that he was indeed in quite a bit of pain as it was happening. He also told me that he was very scared. I couldn’t believe I was telling her this as it came out of my mouth- it seemed hurtful!- but I had to fall back on to my tried and true rule: if Spirit conveys it, they want you to say it.
One one hand, I think that Brad was trying to prove to her that it was indeed him by giving me this information that I would have had no other way of knowing. But at the same time, it was just like having a chat with a friend. I don’t think he saw those details as being hurtful for his wife, it was just what he would have said if they were sitting there talking like they would have done when he was alive. He was just describing what had happened to him and how he felt.
I still don’t necessarily have the explicit answer to “why all the gritty details?” but as I sat one day last week contemplating that very question- what I did get instead was a download of information from Spirit.
First of all, as much as we HOPE our loved ones didn’t suffer during death- there’s always going to be those that did. That’s inevitable. So then what? Have our darkest fears been realized?
The answer lies in how you view the continuation of life after our passing. If you believe that we are simply here to live this one life and then simply turn to dust once it’s over, then yeah… that would SUCK to spend your last moments in extreme pain. SUCKY SUCK SUCKERTON.
The way I see it, though, and the example Spirit gave me, is that it’s kind of like childbirth. Not all of of us have experienced childbirth firsthand, but we’ve all heard the horror stories of extreme pain. Maybe we’ve even seen someone go through it! My own experience fits this bill. When I had my last baby (Sayde- who is my now 17 year old,) it, too, was SUCKY SUCK SUCKERTON. I had no meds to take down the pain, and I even remember thinking that I had had enough, and if given the choice at the time I would have said, “Yeah I changed my mind. Let’s not do this. Let’s just call this whole thing off.”
As we all know, that wasn’t an option.
After enduring pain I would have never thought was possible to survive, it was over just as fast. (She was born “en caul” by the way, which is a fancy way of saying my water never broke; she was born in an intact amniotic sac. It was like I birthed a balloon! But that’s for another blog post, I guess.) My point is, none of us now go around professing our sadness for how bad that freaking hurt, do we? Can you imagine if we approached every new mom telling them how sorry we were for their suffering? “Oh, I see that you have a new baby. I AM SO SORRY FOR YOUR PAIN.”
This was the same sentiment I got from Brad. While the first 25% of his message was about pain, the last 75% focused on happier things. He described seeing all the people at his funeral and lamenting in jest how it would be so cool to know during life that we were all loved so much! He wanted his wife to know that he thought she should get another dog. He said how cool it was that his brother in law spoke at his funeral- that he hadn’t expected that. He was OVER the pain. It clearly wasn’t playing a part in his life on the other side anymore.
This, of course, applies to everyone in SPIRIT. That pain is OVER.
In other words, Kat would be doing herself a sad injustice if all she focused on was how her husband Brad spent his final moments here in his earthly body, instead of now looking for him sending his love with butterflies, “specifically orange ones,” he noted during our reading.
People suffer every day, of course. When they survive, we tend to focus on the life they have after that. “Oh look at you! You’re doing great!” But if someone dies while suffering, we all too often focus on just the end, even though they, too, are still doing great.
We can stop that now. As Spirit says, “It doesn’t matter.”
Kat has recently started a new youtube channel chronicling her thoughts and experiences as a new widow. Take a look at: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCCuO6v0QEd_Xkebq2C9n8Kw
It’s basic science, my dear!
Well, well well. It’s been a while, that’s for sure.
Since we last chatted, I’ve driven and moved across half the country, started my daughter in a new high school (and taught her to drive! EEK), taken my middle son back to college, and married off my oldest son. Truth is, I haven’t made a lot of time for Spirit. That’s not to say Spirit-y things haven’t been happening, but I also haven’t been as inclined to then share them either.
I usually get inspired by a reading or learning something new about the Spirit world and want to share it, but that didn’t happen, and I had spent the better part of the last year feeling like I was failing myself and my “audience.” That is until I came across a particular paragraph on a Facebook page for mediums I’m a part of. Of course, I promptly misplaced it, but it went something like this, (in a much more eloquent style, of course):
‘I haven’t been sharing everything because I needed it to be just for me for a while. I needed to experience these things without the filter of how I was going to retell the story.’
Something like that anyway. You get the gist. I realized I needed to be able to have the mediumship learning experience and not necessarily self-reflect in real time. I needed to get to the 20/20 of the hindsight. (Also meaning, I don’t feel bad anymore for ignoring writing. Ha!) I do have some fun things to share soon enough, but first…
I’ve really been holding back on you.
Last time we chatted I was telling you all about Joseph, my newfound Spirit guide. The thing is, I didnt tell everything. There was a pretty big portion of that “vision” that I left out. I didn’t think you were ready for it… or, maybe I didn’t think I was ready for the murmurs of, “ok, NOWWWWE’VE lost her. WHOA.”
In time, I shared my info with a few people, and the more and more I did, the more I learned that what I saw wasn’t so exactly out of the ordinary. That the idea actually existed in some religions even. And before you say, “Kalachakra? What are you talking about, lady?” Let’s recap.
As I shared in my last blog post, I was in a deep meditation last year when my Spirit Guide, Joseph, introduced himself to me. First, he showed me a past life where I was male and was dying from a gunshot to the chest. Jospeh then lifted my soul from that body and whisked me up to the spirit world. My epiphany at the time was that this guide had been with me through MANY lives, and loved me with the same (actually more) intensity than a mother can love a child. It was INTENSE. And I think that’s where I originally stopped the story… but it was the NEXT part where my brain sort of exploded.
You ready for this? After that, Joseph showed me myself in the “other” realm basically seated in a classroom learning about the ways of “it all.” The visions were in quick succession, but I went from sitting in a classroom looking at some sort of rolling screen, to then standing in the middle of a circle, and knowing that I could choose where to go for my next “life” from ANY point on that circle.
Next, Joseph next showed me a line. The end of the line to my left was the beginning of time, the other end being, well, the end of time. We, of course, are somewhere in between. THEN, he took the ends of the line and brought them together to form…. a circle.
THAT CIRCLE. The one you stand in the middle of where you get to choose where you are going for your next life iteration. That choice is anywhere IN TIME. Time is CIRCULAR.
Would you like to go get a cup of coffee, or maybe a glass of wine before we sit down and discuss this further? Ha!
OK. So I like to think of myself as a pretty scientific person. I think I’ve talked about this before- I firmly believe that what I am experiencing isn’t supernatural or magic, it’s just something we don’t know how to measure yet: a way of communicating that most of us dont pick up on. My guides know my brain works scientifically, and I truly believe it is why they gave me this special glimpse of the inner workings up there. So, I received an explanation to help me understand this in science-y terms: You know how when we stand at the coast, looking out onto the ocean, we see a flat horizon? Well we also know that if we get back far enough, perhaps way up high in a plane, we could see that the horizon actually bends, and going even further up would show us that eventually it comes together to form a globe. Nothing new here, I know. But let’s go further. You know how scientists have said that time bends? (Interstellar, anyone?) And we all usually collectively scratch our heads and go, HUH???? Well, it’s the same as it is for the horizon. If we stand far enough back, eventually time comes back around to itself.
Finally, there are infinite points on a line- we all learn that in Geometry, right? Thus, there are an infinite number of places on that circle we can “go.”
See? It’s all science!
I know. Take a moment if you must.
You might be thinking, “But Holly, If the curve of time is like the curve of the earth then shouldn’t it be a globe?” Well, yes, I agree, but I wasn’t given that info. I don’t know. But man, that kind of makes sense, and now that I’m thinking about it my brain is starting to freak out again. OUCH! The possibilities!
In other news, things have finally settled down again and I’m committed to giving this Spirit stuff the attention it deserves. I came across a tweet yesterday (that I actually saved!) which rings amazingly relevant for me right now,
“Not knowing how to go or where it leads, is no longer a valid reason to ignore your path.” (@SayitValencia/Twitter)
So, I’m done ignoring. I’m now in some fun online groups I’ll share about soon and have also signed up for another round of ghost school in April, so we should have some serious stories this year! And next time, I won’t keep any secrets. It is what it is and I’ve resigned myself to being the weirdo in the bunch. I even bought some Tarot cards. 😉
Meet Joseph
Since I last posted, I’ve spent the recent four months with a very busy brain: full of thoughts of our impending move to NY (Connecticut, actually!) and all of the details that entails. I simply haven’t been focusing on my mediumship- and if any spirits have been knocking on my psychic door to snap me back onto the path, I haven’t answered. (But I think that’s about to change again…)
In some of that time, though, I had been taking an online course from one of the London ghost school teachers, Andy Byng. This guy…. WHOA. He is the exact opposite of the typical medium/psychic we think of in America. He is serious, disciplined, and no gimmicks. In his teaching, there is no “feel good” path to doing mediumship- it’s not about “OOH AHHHHH you can do anything you want if you just BELIEVE!” No. He is ZERO BS: it is only through hard work that true knowledge and connection arises. And even when you think you aren’t BSing? You are. And he knows it. HAHA!
Check out his website if ya want…. https://www.andybyng.com/
Andy’s course was called “Sitting in the Power” and it was basically the “how to” for meditating. Each week he would do a live video conference and then answer our questions before ending the lecture by leading a half hour meditation. The weekly meditations built upon themselves- The first week was more of sitting and focusing on expanding your own power/aura, the second week we expanded that aura to blend with the spirit world, and so on. (Got it? 🙂 )
Just as I was getting used to this format, Andy’s guided meditation decided to throw me a curveball. In one of the classes toward the end of the course, we were doing the usual sitting in our own power and then expanding it to the spirit world… but instead of ending it there, Andy cut back into the meditative silence and told us that we could now invite our Spirit guides to join us and introduce themselves. WHAT?! He added in that it might not be the right time for some of us: if we weren’t at that stage yet and had more work to do, they might not come.
Now, I was having a pretty good meditation that day, but I checked out for long enough to think back to my track record of meditating DAILY as Andy had prescribed, and knew I had fallen quite short of that goal. “There ain’t no way,” I thought, “but sure, I’ll ask…” And so, I asked for my spirit guide(s?) to introduce themselves.
At once, four beings approached me. SERIOUSLY. One was maybe 6 – 8 inches from me on my right side, and there were three others in front of me, but they were a little further away, like… two feet. I turned my attention to the group of three and the one on the left end sort of threw his hands up to say, “don’t look at us, HE’S the important one” and nodded to the spirit that was closer to me.
When I turned my attention, the closer being got right up to me. It was as if we were both… blobs… and every undulation of my blob was filled in with his blob. But only on my right side. It wasn’t like I was a specific blob shape and he was a rigid puzzle piece that fit… everything about it seemed malleable. Like his wavy blobbiness energy just butted right up to mine from head to toe on my right side. Cool huh?
I also intuitively knew this was a male energy. This energy gave me this vision of a mother holding her baby: it’s way of showing me how much it loved me. It was an INTENSE love, that took me aback. I mean, in this current earthly iteration of me, I don’t know this being, but WOW! He loves me as intensely as anything! I then wondered who he was and the answer came right away: “Joe… Joseph.” (Funnily, it was like a second guess, like he thought about it and went, “yeah don’t call me Joe. Lets go with Joseph.” HA!) And then that was it, the meditation ended as the teacher called us all back to the “here and now.”
Now, remember how I said I had been bad at doing my meditation homework? Well, after that I may have lapsed quite a bit. (Yeah I don’t know how/why either. After a session like that you would think I’d be fighting to meditate all day EVERY day. But now that I really think about it, I think I inherently knew that the next session would be uneventful comparatively…) I probably got maybe one meditation a week in the next month, nothing like the half hour/hour every day that was the goal. Now, for the most part, the meditation recordings all sound the same from week to week. (Andy sent us the recordings so we could listen back as our leisure.) But as I began a mediation recently, I started to realize that this may be the recording from the “meet the guides” week. And if that was the case, what would happen? I mean, they already introduced themselves… so…?
Sure enough, this was the recording of spirit guide week, and as Andy once again instructed us to invite our spirit guides, I found myself thinking, “Hey guys! Its cool! I know we already did this – no biggy. I’m good over here!” So, I sat there not expecting anything. (Except maybe a passing hello IF I WAS LUCKY… and I don’t even know how that would work anyway.)
Well, freaking Joseph is badass apparently. My clear head suddenly went to a vision of a man in a flannel shirt- just a closeup of his chest. I knew he had been shot there, and that he had a black dog that was with him as he lay dying.
I also knew that this man in the flannel shirt… was me.
This vision took me through his death- and as the mans soul was pulling away from the body, this Holly- like me right now- thought “Wow that’s sad. I wonder if he had any family he left behind?” The answer came to me in the form of the man now sitting in a classroom “up above.” He was content, and showed me that the passage of time for him wasn’t the same for us here on earth. Whatever family and friends he had left behind would be sad, yes, but for only a relatively short time until they too would be up there as well. I was then shown the limp body of this man in the flannel shirt, being rushed and flown up to the “other side”… in the arms of a large being with wings….. Joseph.
I don’t know when this flannel shirted man would have lived, but I DO know, that Joseph… this dude that I don’t even know right now… has had my back for a long time. And I’m diggin’ it.
Subtle Shmuttle – part 2
I would be remiss in talking about “non-subtle spirit prodding” if I didn’t mention a very recent experience. And I’m actually very excited to tell this story because I have been given free reign – I can tell you exactly who this is about! We are talking real names and places, people!
All right – I do need to give the history here, though. Back when all of this was just beginning for me (about three years ago, I guess?) my mom, Mickey, came to town. At that time, I was desperately looking for information and guidance, and I thought she might be a good guinea pig for me to try out my new found “talents” on. I remember being so nervous! I went into my room with a pad of paper and got into meditation mode with the goal of simply connecting to anyone that wanted to come through for her. At that time, I became aware of my grandmother (my moms mom) who was not mentally well when I knew her. I don’t recall her giving me any message – just simply making me aware of her presence. My grandfather, though, did come through and did have a message, which was “I’m sorry.” (Without getting into that whole backstory – let’s just say, he was “a little shit.” And I can say that and laugh about it because not only would he laugh also, but he would’ve probably called me that first. He was one of those old guys that was completely inappropriate and always going for the joke – even if you were the butt of it.) He also gave me “wallpaper,” which certainly seems like an odd piece of information… but then again I was sitting there listening to a spirit, so… what’s odd, really?
The next morning I came out with my trusty pad of paper and relayed this information to my mom. I told her her father said he was sorry, but I knew that kind of information could easily be something that I would know and could infer. My mom and I have talked at length about my grandfather’s… “destructive” sense of humor, if you will, so I don’t blame her for being slightly ambivalent about the whole experience. I think she was trying her best to be supportive but has also had a hard time sort of buying into all of this one hundred percent. (Although, I did tell her about the “wallpaper” and she said that when she was growing up they had one wall with crazy red chinese dragon wallpaper on it.)
Now let’s jump to about seven months ago when my mom was back visiting again. We were driving in the car, just her and I, and out of nowhere I had an intense pressure on the left side of my head. It felt like my ear was going to pop! But just ONE ear! I brought my hand to the side of my head, “What the…. Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?” my mom asked.
“That pressure! It’s just…I…” I tried to explain, but I don’t think she quite understood how odd of an experience it was for me. I semi assumed it must be a spirit thing, but I’d never felt it quite like that before, and I had no idea how to proceed, so that was that. It went away and life went on.
Just a few weeks ago, my mom was back in town again visiting. We had already spent a few days hanging out, and had just that day been at the wig store. We were indulging my mom’s curiosities about todays’s wig options (as she had once owned a wig shop in her younger years) and she was also getting increasingly concerned about her possibly thinning hair. We talked about her condition not being surprising as it would be purely genetic – both her father and grandmother both had very fine and thin hair, with grandmother essentially bald. We had a fun day with lots of laughs, of course, and my mom ended up with a really cool little hairpiece that she keeps calling a “wiglet.” (And somehow, she says it with a straight face.)
The next day, I was simply walking to the garage to get something from my car when it hit. AGAIN. Super intense pressure on the left side. Like being up in a plane before your ears pop times five. But only half of your head.
I was startled, but quickly put the pieces together that this was happening again when my mom was here. I literally went from “wow there is pressure on the side of my head” to “that’s the same pressure that happened to me last time” to “it only happens when my mom is here” to “I bet it’s spirit” and ending with “It’s grandpa and grandma Lilly” within a fraction of a second. I include that because it’s important to know that I didn’t have a chance to sit there and think about this. There was no rational mind in coming to the conclusion that it was my grandfather and my great grandmother. And that’s one of those things that for me is when I truly know from the get go that my internal dialogue had nothing to do with it.
I was paralyzed with shock. I certainly was not expecting any sort of message for my mom on this trip. I found myself standing alone in the dark garage wondering how to proceed and forgetting why I was there in the first place. It’s kind of like being in that building in California from the last post – do I tell my mom simply that her father and her grandmother are here? Will I be able to elicit more information? I walked back into the house and everybody was going about their normal routine like I hadn’t just been pressure punched in the laundry room. I felt like I was a walking zombie – I could hardly form a thought or think about anything other than what my next move was with spirit. I somehow excused myself unnoticed and went to my closet to meditate, again with my pad of paper.
When I closed my eyes and tuned out my surroundings, I was aware that both my grandfather and great grandmother were there. (This is the same “little shit” grandfather from before, but now he was accompanied by his mother as well.) My grandfather was quick to start. “I’m sorry. I’m telling you again because you believe now.” (Meaning- she believes in all this spirit stuff now, as opposed to the first time he came though.) I could tell that my great grandmother was there, but she was letting my grandpa do the talking. “We’ve tried to get your attention but you’re focused on other things.” I knew right away what he meant by this, as I’m guilty of it also. In order to get messages from spirit and loved ones, we have to have a blank mind sometimes. It’s not to say that you have to be sitting in meditation… it’s just that going from the television to our phone to our computers in a basically never ending cycle never gives us the mental downtime that they would need to catch our attention.
I then had an image of my grandfather and great grandmother giggling and they showed me how they were watching us in the wig shop the day before. My grandpa laughed and said “that is our legacy.” They thought it was funny that what they would be remembered by was their thinning hair.
I finished up my meditation faster than usual, as we were all preparing to leave to run some errands that day. (I was also afraid of being found in my closet. I could just see my poor husband walking in… “what are you doing NOW?”) So, as soon as my grandfather sort of stepped back and stopped giving information as readily, I let him go quickly and said thank you. We hopped into the car and I told my mom what had happened. This time, she was much more intrigued. “Really? REALLY? wow.” Then, in a moment I will never forget, she suddenly turns and says, “my ear is buzzing!”
I couldn’t help but smile and I said “Yes! That’s what happens!”
“It’s like a bee is buzzing but it’s only right here in this area on this one side!”
“I know! I know! That’s what happens to me!” I told her. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen my mother so thrown off guard- and it was awesome. It took her a while to stop describing it – almost as if we didn’t believe her. “This has NEVER happened to me before!”
It was like that scene in Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner is on the ground trying to save his daughter from choking on the hotdog when the ghost doctor steps off of the baseball field and the stupid brother-in-law finally sees all of the ghosts.
This was my mom’s, “When did these Ballplayers get here?” moment.*
I’m not sure what’s next for her, but I have a feeling her “Kids fair alter ego, Madame Michelle” was just to prepare us all for…. Medium Mickey!
*Please tell me you’ve seen that movie and get that reference. If not- go immediately to your television and order/find it. You can’t read a ghost blog without watching Field of Dreams. It’s a real rule, pinky swear.
Subtle Shmuttle- part one
I probably overuse the word “subtle“ in a lot of my storytelling. “Spirit is subtle”… “I can’t believe how subtle the signs are!“ I know, I know – you get it already!
But, there have been a few times lately where it hasn’t been so subtle – and those are the really cool connections. Those are the ones where there is absolutely no question that what’s happening is really happening, and there’s also a lot less internal wishy-washiness about telling the recipient when you know how hard their loved ones must’ve worked to get through.
I haven’t asked permission from this next gentleman to tell his not-so-subtle story, so I will keep names and places very general, but this is how it went down:
I was with my family and we were taking a tour of our friend, “Tim’s” workplace. He is overseeing the renovation of an old building in California. We said our hellos outside on the grounds, and then stepped into the front door of the project, which was very much under construction; scaffolding lined some of the walls, ladders laid on the floor, and various workers milled about. During the tour Tim gave us, he was highlighting all sorts of stuff… NONE of which I heard. Why? Because as soon as we walked in the building, my brain started doing that buzzy spinny thing again. It’s apparently spirit’s version of, “Hey look at me!!”
The buzzing had just started when I looked at Tim and simultaneously heard, “grandpa.”
Oh…… NO. Here we go.
So at this moment, my brain is not only going haywire with spirit energy, but also trying to start processing how I will (or WON’T) possibly tell Tim what I’ve heard. Am I supposed to repeat just that to him? “Hey your grandpa is here!” What if nothing else follows? Then we’d all look around at each other, my kids doing that wide darting eyed silent code for “dude. Mom is WEIRD” and my husband looking at his friend like, “oh I’m so sorry about her.”
But hallelujah something DID follow. As I walked, I heard: “Dad’s Dad.” “Namesake.”
Hey! Now we are getting somewhere!
The tour probably lasted anther 15-20 minutes with no more outright information- just me trying to physically shake off the “ooglies”- and boy were they THICK. It’s SUCH an odd feeling. It’s kind of like…. a light electrocution mixed with confusion. You can’t get everything to stop, I dunno… moving. Just continuous waves of energy. It doesn’t hurt- it’s just kind of annoying when you’re trying to think, listen, be normal, and NOT give off “ghosts are all over me” vibes. I was literally in the back of the family tour pack- walking and throwing my hands trying to flick it off, and hoping no one would notice my new tick. (That didn’t work.) I knew then that the only way to shake this was to just come clean with Tim, however looney it sounded.
Tim finally walked us out- I waited for my family to each say their goodbyes and get in the car before I made my move. My hands were vigorously shaking, and I started to tear up. (This stuff gets freakily emotional- and you don’t always know why,)
“Soooo, you know that thing I do?” (This is my innovative go-to line apparently..)
“…no.”
“You know… the medium thing….” (I was sure we must have discussed this over a bottle of wine when he visited the prior year..)
“…no…but my wife is really into that stuff…”
Sigh. “Well when I walked in I got some serious vibes and heard ‘Grandpa’ and then, ‘Dads dad’ and ‘namesake.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“Oh lots of stuff happens here!” Tim explained, glossing over my specifics. “I hear things all the time…” He said he hears footsteps and voices as clear as yours and mine saying, “hello?” as if they are looking for someone in the building. He told me two men ran into his office one day, scared to bits because “something was chasing them.”
Well, Ok… that’s neato and all, but… “this is for YOU. YOUR grandpa.”
Tim eyes went wide.
“Grandpa. Dad’s dad. Namesake.”
The wheels were obviously turning in Tim’s head but it was like he couldn’t even comprehend what I was saying now that this was so personal. He started talking about his Dad, thinking it must be him when I interrupted, “What was your grandpa’s name?”
“Well, my DAD’S name was Bill…”
“And your GRANDFATHER?”
“Timothy,” Tim casually stated.
I looked at Tim with my hands in the air as if to convey, “well duh!” and just said, “namesake!”
Tim was fairly speechless. It was like he knew there were ghosts there, but he never considered they were HIS ghosts. But now Tim was curious, like, “ok grandpa is here….. and? Why?”
Well actually, I had already asked! “He just wants you to know he sees what you are doing and loves watching you at work and he’s proud of you!”
And that is exactly what happened. At some point during the tour (that I’ll have to take again someday,) I did ask Grandpa, “so what do you want me to tell him?” and I didn’t hear anything like a sentence- nothing audible. It was just a feeling and the knowledge of the late, great, Timothy, hanging out and proudly watching his successful namesake at work.
Trust your Gut
It started with a tag on Facebook last week.
“Holly, can you help? Is a this enough information for you?”
I quickly scanned the post it was referring to.
A friend of a friend of a friend (seriously) on FB had posted her story of leaving Vietnam in 1984. This woman, *Sarah, sadly told of how her mother had been kidnapped by pirates from the boat they were on. She also said that she figured her mother had since passed, if only because she thought she could sometimes “feel her around,” but that she was now in limbo because a medium had recently told her otherwise.
I decided to stop reading the post at that point; I didn’t want to know anything further-didn’t want to taint anything. Sarah simply wanted to know if her mom was alive or… dead. I had her name and her mom’s name…I figured that was all I needed.
I surprised myself in that I wanted to give this a try. I had never attempted something like this before; not only reading someone miles and miles away (that had no idea I was even DOING it), but doing a reading where much of the info I’d expect to procure couldn’t even be verified by the person I’m trying to help!
This is also probably a good time to mention that I’m knee-deep into a meditation class. It’s a weekly online forum where one of my instructors from Ghost School talks about meditation: how to use it, how to do it, what to say, etc. So… I’ve been feeling a lot more “connected” lately. After I read Sarah’s post, I kind of relayed to the spirit world, “I don’t know what my next step is, but if you put it in front of me, I certainly will give it a try.” And so… try I did.
Since I’ve been trying to “sit in the power” MUCH more often for this class, I figured I would add Sarah’s situation into that day’s meditation. I sat down, closed my eyes, “expanded my soul” and tried to connect with someone who could help.
Fairly quickly, I saw a woman. I knew right away it was Sarah’s mother, in a state of the most raw despair. She was screaming but I couldn’t hear her. I just saw her face, she was bent over with fists clenched and mouth and eyes turned down as if her world was ending… It was the face you’d imagine if one was being pulled away from her children. She quickly relayed that she would rather be dead than be in the situation she had been in. She knew that the ending for her was death anyway, and she felt that death was better than the pain she was experiencing. She spared me the detail of her captivity, but i knew it was horrific, emotionally and physically.
If I had had any question as to the fate of Sarah’s mother, that was quickly put to rest. It was then that a message came through from a different source, a BIGGER source. “Trust your gut.” (That was for Sarah. The source was letting Sarah know that she was right all along about her mothers passing.) It then said to me, “We have her. She is fine. She was WRONGED.”
Whoa.
Sarah’s mother stepped back up and began communicating as if she was talking directly to Sarah:
“Your pain is not knowing. You don’t remember.” Sarah’s mom was both telling Sarah AND communicating to me that Sarah didn’t remember what had happened and so Sarah’s pain now was not memories, but the not knowing if her mom had survived. At this point I started wondering “in 1984, if Sarah was MY age she would have been around 10… wouldn’t she remember some of that?” Ughhhh… I hoped my info was right…
I then felt/heard “I can watch you! I’m happy again!” Sarah’s mom was telling me that she was free of her physical body being trapped somewhere else- she could REALLY watch her daughter live! It was at this point that I broke into a happy tears/overjoyed moment. (And don’t forget, I was alone! Ha! I was literally sobbing happily on the couch all by myself!) She literally made me FEEL how proud she was of Sarah- she told me that she was absolutely willing to give up her life to have this life for Sarah. This was her purpose- and she would make the same choices again if she had to. She had no regrets.
She then started giving me some “proof,” if you will. She said there was a “shrine.” But there was a quick addendum of, “Something small but makes you feel attached.” I wrote this down hoping it would make sense to Sarah if I could get this information to her.
Then, I saw Sarah’s mother holding a baby in pink. Initially, the baby girl was Sarah. But then it was as if the meaning morphed, and now this was meant to show me Sarah’s child. The weird thing is, as I heard it, it was, “I know and love the children.” I had only seen her cradling one baby girl, but I heard “childREN.” And so that’s what I wrote. I had a few seconds of doubt, “what if she only has one child and I’m wrong?” But if I’ve learned anything- it’s to go with what Spirit gives me. (What was it Spirit said to me way back when I was worried about getting information wrong? Oh yeah- “You don’t have to be right. You just have to LISTEN.”)
I then got “Boy Girl.” And then quickly thereafter: “5/3” ……But then doubting Holly came in. “Is this how old the kids are now? Crap, this is getting specific.” I’m STILL in that place where it is SO hard to trust what is coming through. I cannot STRESS ENOUGH how subtle this sh&t is. (SERIOUSLY. If that’s the only lesson today, let it be that: SPIRIT CAN BE SUBTLE. “Did I really just hear that?” Remember that in your life, too. Loved ones may be trying to give you signs and you may be missing it because you’re only looking for objects flying across the room!) I then moved into “Is this how old she and her brother were when this happened to them?” (wait, did I just say that? Yes I did. I said “brother.” I wondered if she had a brother?
The next thing to pop up (and that’s literally what happens- things just pop up!) was “red shirt.” I had received this same message when the reading first started but had blown it off as my own thoughts, but here it was again. I wrote it down.
Then, “August.” I wrote that down too.
Then came the part of the reading that showed me we were at the end. I felt a strong pressure in the right side of my head. It was then that I knew how Sarah’s mother had died. She gave me more than the method- she gave me her feelings too. I knew that she was angry, and combative, and wasn’t going down without a fight. She knew there was no way out, so she wasn’t going down easily. She didn’t fight to get away- she fought for her dignity. She never wanted to let them think they had defeated her, so she was a fighter through and through. And for this, she was punished. A strong blow to the right side of the head had finally bought her the peace she desired… and she was able to see her daughter again. She made me feel like she had been released.
**********
I sent this information initially to the guy who had tagged me on Facebook, hoping he could get the info to Sarah. Two days after I received an email from her:
Now let me step in again and reluctantly let you into the real world of Holly. I check my email, lets say- sporadically. Every couple of days… maybe. So I finally read this email from Sarah the day AFTER her “tomorrow.” She had sent this on Wednesday, I read it on Friday at about 8am. And when I saw it, I was still in bed and I had so much to do and I remember thinking- “sigh… I’ll get back to her later today.” But as soon as I closed my email, the right side of my head started throbbing again. I knew immediately that it was my sign to answer her. So I did. I emailed back and Sarah and I set up a time to talk later that day at 12:30 ET.
Now, I had a few hours to kill- so I did some work then decided to take a bath. At one point, I was relaxed and floating. In my head, I had LOTS of time left. I looked at my clock- it was 11:15. Perfect- Loads of time to soak! WAIT- 11:15 my time means 12;15 hers! That meant I only had now 15 minutes to wash up and be ready to talk! Honestly, though? My first thought was that I could do this on “Holly time.” I mean, this is like charity, right? I callously thought, “Meh, I can be a few minutes late on this one…” But then the right side of my head throbbed. Sarah’s mom was on it. I knew I had to get moving.
I face-timed Sarah at 12:30ET EXACTLY and she told me what had happened so far to get her to this point….
Her dog, *Rex, had suddenly become sick. She had had him for three weeks, but then, inexplicably, Rex had lost bowel control during the night…going anywhere and everywhere… for TWO WEEKS. She then called a dog medium (Huh? Well that story took a turn fast!) The dog medium told Sarah that a spirit was… basically scaring the sh*t out of her dog. She told Sarah that she needed to get rid of this spirit so that her dog could relax. But she also told her this spirit was a grandmother figure and liked to watch her and the kids, and loved to watch her cook.
This is where it’s kinda funny… Sarah told me that her first reaction was, “This spirit is protecting me! I’ll get rid of the dog before I get rid of the spirit!”
The dog medium asked Sarah if either of her or her husband’s mothers had passed. Sarah’s husbands mother was still alive, but she didn’t KNOW if her mom was or not. She had the dog medium “look into it.” Sarah told me the dog medium used the photograph of her mother to examine the mother’s chakras.
Yeah. I have no idea what that means either. And I AM NOT LAUGHING. And you should STOP laughing! 🙂
I’m kidding. Like I’ve said before, I am certainly not one to judge if things are weird. But, I would venture to say it wasn’t very accurate (at least in MY opinion) because the dog medium told Sarah that she felt like her mother was still alive.
Sarah relayed that they had purchased a foreclosure home, one that was in worse shape than any other they had considered. She said contractors they hired complained that the home was haunted by an evil spirit, and many ended up injured. She told me that she always reiterated that she felt like the spirit in the home was good and was there to protect her, and then found out that many of those contractors were doing some shady dealings with her. Mom had her back the whole time!
When Sarah and I were able to get to the nitty-gritty of the information I had gathered- she basically confirmed it all. She didn’t remember anything from the boat, and agreed her pain now stemmed from not knowing what happened to her mother.
When I mentioned the “shrine,” Sarah proudly pointed out the ONE picture she has of her mother, framed proudly behind her work desk so that she can see it whenever she turns around.
As for the thing about the baby? Yes. Sarah DOES have two children. One girl and one boy… and her boy is 5 years old. I said to her, “Well, I saw 5 slash 3… Is there anything that the three means to you?” Nothing. I then thought out loud, “could it be the ages you were when this happened to you and your brother? You do have a brother, correct?” She affirmed she did and told me that she was also 5 years old when this had happened on the boat… but that her brother had not been 3. (I wanted to explain to her that the brother question had been nagging at me since I had finished the first part of the reading!)
I went on to ask her about the red shirt. I mentioned that I had gotten this information two times, once at the beginning of the connection with her mother and again at the end. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“Well, the only thing I can think of is that last week I went shopping and the only thing, like the ONLY thing I bought, was a red shirt. Could that mean she is trying tell me she was with me shopping?”
My eyes were spinning because as she said this, I was taking into account that she was now wearing a red vest… it was like her mom knew not only what she had been doing last week, but also what she would be wearing for our meeting. I laughed and said, “Absolutely! That could easily be that! She wants you to know she’s around!”
For some reason at this point I asked Sarah,”How old is your daughter?”
“13,” she told me.
Chills came over me as I glanced back at my notes. I realized that the visual I had seen had completely corresponded to the facts, but that my interpretation was off. I saw “5/3”. To me that meant 5 slash 3- hence, 5 and 3. But my brain went back to the mental image I had been given- 5 SLASH 3. I then finally figured out the clue: it was “513.” FIVE- THIRTEEN.
WOW. SOOOOO COOOOOOL!!!!
And what was significant in August? Well, that was her daughter’s birthday. 🙂
From then on, we had a great conversation. I think Sarah knows that her mom is with her in spirit now and she can stop worrying about the “ghost” in her home. I actually gave the mom a “what the heck?” regarding the dog, and she relayed back that she was sorry and didn’t realize her own “spirit” strength! Sarah is content in knowing that her “gut” was right- that she WAS being protected by this spirit, and even happier knowing that this spirit is indeed her mother.
She also knows that her mom went down fighting. And that her mom is happier than EVER being on the other side of all of this and being able to see her daughter and now her grandchildren grow.
*Names have been changed. Yes, even the dog’s.
Update: I showed the original FB post to my friend who noticed that Sarah DID mention a brother in it. I can honestly say I didn’t read that far in, but who’s to say my eye didn’t subconsciously catch that bit…? It also explains why Sarah wasn’t surprised that I knew that. Ha! Oh well. 🙂
The Crow Knows
I was hoping to have a better conclusion to this next story, which is why I’ve waited so long to tell it. I wanted to wrap it up into a big bow and go, “Here ya go!”, but that isn’t what is going to happen. Not yet anyway…
About two months ago, the fam and I went to Santa Barbara for a little vacation. We hadn’t been back in a long time, and despite both my son Tate and daughter Sayde being born there, neither had many memories of it. So the overcast mornings and beach weather and trips to the waterfront were all new to them. (My oldest had to stay back due to work.) We even ended up staying at a friend of a friends’ house just blocks away from the ocean. It was magnificent!
Driving up from LAX on Saturday evening, my husband reminded me (for the second time) “You should go to church tomorrow.” Now, the church he was talking about was the “Church of the Comforter” in downtown SB, and it was the place where it kind of all began for me. That was where I went for guidance immediately after my initial “blue hair yellow Cadillac” incident. The Sunday service was now less than 14 hours out, and it was going to be the only chance I had at visiting, but I really wouldn’t have remembered had it not been for Casey’s reminders. We had had a crazy couple of days beforehand traveling, and so the forgetful mind coupled with the lure of a warm bed surely would have done me in.
Early the next morning, I found myself in a king size bed with a fluffy duvet, the windows open, and… the CROWS SQUAWKING. My brain was jolted awake and I had a split second of thinking, “You’re kidding me. I’m on vacation and I’m gonna have to listen to THIS every morning?!” Before that thought even ended, I was literally interrupted by another voice. I heard, “HaHaHa! That just means its going to be cool outside. Now get out there and see what’s happening today!” My eyes popped open and I sat there thinking, “Whoa. That was NOT me talking to myself!” I then developed a hypothesis to test on subsequent mornings- “Did the crows only squawk on overcast cool days?”
Casey soon left to golf with the great sport legends of the word, (as one does, right?) and I rallied the kids to go with me to church. Sayde was excited- Tate, not so much. (As he would tell me later: “I BELIEVE you, I’m just not INTO it.” Haha!) We arrived a bit early for “healing” sessions, where you go up to the front of the room and sit in a chair while a healer person… does their healing thing to you. (I don’t know what it is, but if at the very least it’s someone praying over you to be healthy for a few minutes, well then sign me up!)
I went first and selfishly hoped the nice woman would realize how much my stupid chronic shoulder injury hurt and pull off some miracle on me (but knowing that what I really needed was some more clarity about my spiritual journey. 😉 ) I returned to my seat a few minutes later and tried to nudge Tate up to the front. He gave me the death stare, so I turned my attention to Sayde. She was gung-ho and scrambled up to the next available seat.
I then watched as this adorable old woman stands behind Sayde, her eyes closed and her hands slowly tracing Sayde’s aura. The woman breaks into a big smile as she does this. It was neat to watch, but I had to wonder if she had been doing that with everyone? When she was done, I told Sayde about the woman beaming as she “healed” her, and for the next 15 minutes we watched intently as she kept a stoic yoda face with the rest of her heal-ees. Innnnteresting!
From there, it was as normal as a normal church can be. We sang a few songs and listened to some nice words, but the woman leading it then remarks on the bigger attendance today due to the special guest. Turns out we happened to visit on the morning that a medium from Los Angeles was going to give messages. (Coincidence? I think not.) As soon as I saw her, I remember thinking, “Holy hell that’s good hair.” Haha! But then, “I NEED to figure out a way to talk to her after this.” I mean, It isn’t every day that I run into a real live medium ya know! Anyway- her name is Austyn Wells, and she stood up there and talked about this beautiful life (and reaffirmed my confidence that I’m on the right path) before starting into messages for the people in attendance.
Austyn gave a few readings- and I thought how great it was to once again be privy to this experience, and actually sort of hoping that my “people” on the other side would stay quiet. As a family, we just haven’t had any huge unexpected deaths close to us that have ever impacted our well being, so I wanted other people in the room to have those messages more than myself. Well, that was until Austyn said, “I want to go to the middle of the room. The young man sitting there with the pink shirt.”
SHE’S LOOKING AT TATE.
I mutter an “ohhhhhh shit,” under my breath as Tate’s head pops up from his phone wide eyed..
Austyn continued, “I have a young man here in the spirit world, about your age. Does that make sense to you?”
“Uhhhhhhh…. maybe? I don’t know…?” Austyn now also looks confused as she moves to the man sitting in front of Tate. “It’s definitely in this area- does that mean anything to YOU?” The man shakes his head no.
A few seconds of silence passed as we waited for Austyn to continue, until the woman NEXT to Tate says “I know a young male in the spirit world.” Austyn looked at her for a split second before turning her attention confidently back to Tate,
“No, this is for YOU. The young gentleman in the pink shirt. You are who I need to work with on this.”
She started to describe a young man, the same age as Tate. She said he was standing up there with an air of confidence, like he was bad ass and he knew it. Tate still looked confused. I know now that he was going through the very small Rolodex of people he knew of that had died. He thought that maybe it could have been a boyfriend of one of his friends that had died a few years back, but nothing was truly clicking. And then she said, “You might not actually know this guy.” That’s when it hit me. I tapped Tate on the shoulder and I said, “I know who it is.”
*Now, before I go any further, I need to give you some info, and I’m going to try real hard not to give any identifying information. So, some facts will be changed and others left out.
There was a teenager who died just before we left on our trip. He was around Tate’s age, and while they didn’t know each other, they probably would have known OF each other. It was one of those deaths that just stops you in your tracks for a bit: same age as Tate- same interests- I was sure that we must have seen this kid around at some point. (I feel like I may have said too much already, but those are some facts that are sort of integral to the story here.)
“I know who it is,” I told Tate.
“You do?”
“It’s that kid from Willis.”
And when I say it hit me, IT HIT ME. I’m SURE that this kid was going, “It’s me its me!” before deciding to pop into my head for a quick shout. It was as if all of a sudden- I just KNEW.
Tate and I turned back to Austyn and we both started listening to the details she was giving with fresh ears. She told us how many siblings he had (later confirmed,) the two toned dog that he had by his side, and that he was reaching out to Tate because he didn’t know any other way to get a message to his parents- he was desperate to just let them know he was OK. She said that none of his family would be in a position to get a message, so going through Tate was his way of grasping at spiritual straws, in a way. She said the father was devastated, but that the mom was SO distraught that the father was both grieving his son and feeling utterly helpless as to how to help his wife.
Tate relayed to Austyn that we did NOT in fact know this kid, so we couldn’t confirm or deny any of the details she was giving. “Can you meet me after this then?” Austyn asked. “This is too important to not figure out. He even came IN with you guys!” Austyn’s point was, this wasn’t just some oh-hey-look-who’s-here-I’m-gonna-say-Hi thing. This kid was doing everything to make this all come together. In my head, I went back to the oddness of Casey just happening to remind me to go to church- TWICE. The weird crows waking me up bright and early and telling me to “go out and see what’s happening out there!” The fact that Tate was even THERE. I can’t even being to tell what an oddity THAT was.
While Austyn was speaking, a lady’s phone randomly went off in the front row. Not a ring or a beep, but Siri saying the date. “July, twenty (garbled), two thousand seventeen.” The poor lady scrambled to pick up and silence her iPhone and the congregation giggled. Austyn did too, but then said, “You know, Spirit works in mysterious ways… Does July mean anything? Maybe not this July, but July?”
I looked at her and my voice shook. “This July. He died this July.” I heard the audience gasp. Here’s the thing: the day in church was July thirty. But Siri had said July twenty something. I hadn’t heard the exact date, but Sayde turned to me and said, “Mom, she said July twenty ****.” And sure enough, when we looked it up after, that was the day he had died.
We stayed after and Austyn sat down with us. She said the kid was still there, of course, and was now talking about his teammates and how they were like brothers to him. He also needed them to know he was ok. She said he was acknowledging that he couldn’t believe it had come to this, having to work with his direct competitor! Austyn asked Tate if he was comfortable passing on the message to them. Tate said that he would try, but that they didn’t even have any friends in common. Austyn paused for a moment and wondered aloud, “Why would he ask you this if you don’t know any of them?” and then she she kind of answered her own question and stated emphatically, “You need to talk to the person with the A- name. That’s who will be the most open to this.”
For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave out some of the “connective tissue” that takes us to the end of all of this. Suffice to say, my whole family’s head was spinning on what steps to take next. Tate ended up getting a phone number for the friend with the “A” name and after explaining what had happened (via text)- the friend never replied back.
**Sigh**
I have since contacted the Dad via social media and asked to sit down with him for a bit. I wouldn’t normally reach out to a stranger like that, but in this situation, how could I not? Yesterday, his father and I finally traded some, you guessed it, text messages. To say that was not my preferred method of communication would be a massive understatement, but he was wanting some details as to why I wanted to speak to him. I tried my best not scare him off, giving as little as I could while also giving him.. something. I just felt like if I could physically sit down with him I could explain it all…
Well, that was yesterday midday and… I haven’t received a reply. While my soul wants to give him a message from his son, my heart only can hope that I didn’t make his pain any worse. As of right now? I’m not sure if I’ll ever find out.
My plan is to give it a few more days, and if I still don’t hear anything, tread lightly with one more text, simply stating that his son just wanted him to know he was ok.
The other stuff? Well I do have a tidy/feel good end to those pieces, so that’s where we can wrap this up. The old Yoda healer lady interrupted our conversation with Austyn to tell us what a pleasure it was to work with Sayde, and that she couldn’t help but giggle during it! She said that Sayde had such a good soul, and that many many spirits were around her, all wanting to be a part of her healing. It was almost as if they were arguing over who was going to get to help!
Also, it may have slipped out that I’d just gotten back from ghost school in London, so I got some serious greet cred at the church. 😉 Sayde and I ended up going to dinner with Austyn that night and she will be one of my medium buddies forever!
And my hypothesis regarding the crows? Well the next morning, Monday, it was overcast and the crows squawked again. Tuesday? The sun was shining and… no crows. But here’s the fun part: on my last morning there- the crows started squawking yet again. I’m thinking, “ok- let’s see if it’s overcast!” As I opened my eyes I caught a peek of… wait what? Brilliant sunshine?! But before I could throw away my week of highly scientific testing, I again hear the same voice that started my week off with a jovial/tongue-in-cheek, “Merry Christmas! This ones on us!”
Holly Paulson Ph”Md.”
I should have been a doctor. Oh sure, the classes are intense, the time laborious, but at least there’s a plan. You take chemistry and anatomy and then move on to biology and clinicals (or however it goes) and never sleep and then years later its over and VOILA! You’re a doctor.
But this? This is wacky. I’m sort of in a rut right now- the spiritual juices just aren’t flowing currently. So it doesn’t help that I don’t know if I’m a freshman or a sophomore- and I’m pretty sure I”ll never know if I graduate. And, as hard as I want to work to see this through, I don’t know if what I’m doing is even part of the curriculum! There is no one school I can get into and just show up for class. It’s like I WANT to get my degree- but there is nowhere to apply!
“OK but what about ghost school? Didn’t you just get back from London?”
Well, yes. That is true. And its also true that one of the only things that has kept me sane so far is going there and learning that a lot of spiritual experiences are so similar. “Oh good you heard the voices, too? Whew!” But as much as I was hoping that the London course was going to be Ghost 101 (GST101) leading to a Medium degree at Oxford, it wasn’t. And ironically enough, it was an exchange I had outside class that really helped this sink in.
If you’ve been following from the get go, you’re familiar with the story that set this whole thing into motion a couple years ago: when the 20 something year old kid basically shared my body for a good 45 minutes so he could hug and assure his mom he was ok. I wrote about that experience in a very detailed way; not for artistry, but because what I wrote is EXACTLY how it went down. From the square plane of energy that glided through my head to the abrupt ending once he said “I gotta go,” those details were amazingly clear to me. Furthermore, I knew I’d deal with skeptics from all around… but I never thought I’d have another medium question it…
A little background on the London class: The gentleman who put it together is a highly respected medium named Paul Jacobs. (I hadn’t heard of him before my trip but HO-LEE-CRAPOLA he is GOOD!) Paul’s mentor was a man named Gordon Higginson. Now, I still haven’t learned much about Mr. Higginson, but apparently he was THE king of “trance” mediumship while he was alive. (I will also say I don’t know much about trance mediumship either- I’m still a freshman! Or a sophomore?) Anywhoo- I think I was one of the only people there that just went to this course on a hunch, cause everyone else seemed to have the backstory down.
Cut to one of the nights after a long day in class: a lot of us went to the little “pub” the school has downstairs to keep mingling. I think it was night three, and I started talking to a woman who wasn’t in my class. I’m pretty sure she had been to the school before, but I know for sure she currently works as a medium and a spiritual teacher. My point is- she was not in the kindergarten class like I was. Ha! Somehow we got to talking about what had brought me to the school, and I told her a bit of my story. When it came to the part about this kid sharing my body- she gave me a look of disbelief. And not disbelief like “wow thats amazing,” but disbelief like “you have no idea what you’re talking about you silly little kindergartener.” I found myself retelling details to try to convince her that it happened just like I said it did. Her reply was something to the effect of “spirits don’t take over your body like that. Maybe it felt like it but thats probably just because you didn’t know what connecting feels like. If they DID take you over it would be trance mediumship and you wouldn’t be able to remember it.”
I walked away from the conversation incensed. Her comments came off to me as completely condescending. “I was the beginner, so I couldn’t really know yet now could I?!” (Sarcasm font.) Trance mediumship was out of my league, I guess. (Without getting into the intricacies, I stand by my story. Nothing I have experienced since that day has been even remotely like it.) After feeling like I was being bullied by a fourth grader, my co-kindergarteners finally talked me down. I realized that I must have come off to this woman like I was trying to put myself up there with the likes of the revered Gordon Higginson, and if my story was true, it threw her whole perception of the process right out the window.. The idiocy of all this makes me laugh now- because its such a typical “Holly” thing to do. It was like I went to a Michael Jordan basketball camp run by Steph Curry and had no idea who either one of them were beforehand. And then to top it off, telling one of the participants that I had just started getting into basketball because I got asked to join a pick up game one day and made 30 half court shots in a row and thought, hmmm, maybe I should try this sport. (Oh wait- I was supposed to make a medical school reference there, wasn’t it? Shoot. Eh- Ill get back to it. )
So, I took a few things from this dramatic episode of ghost school:
1) A deep breath before responding is GOOD- because I was ready to take that bi@#h DOWN. 😉
2) This woman was trying to fit being a medium into a tidy little schedule of courses and semesters. A syllabus where “trance” mediumship is only for the PHD’s. (There it is.) And taking it further- that true “trance mediumship” had to fall into a specific set of circumstances. She wanted to put rules and parameters on something that no one can really explain. But how can I blame her? Thats how I want it to be too! This chaotic medium journey would be exponentially more palatable if there was a visible path to graduation. Which leads me to-
3) In the beginning, as much as I needed to know that others were having the same experiences, I’ve finally rounded the corner, and now know it’s OK to have different ones too- ones that don’t need to be a part of any textbook. I don’t need to label myself as a type of medium, nor do I want to limit any abilities because I don’t consider myself an upperclassman. That is not to say there aren’t some good lectures I should be sitting in on from time to time- I know that there are teachers out there who know WAY more than I do now- but I also have to remember: I don’t ever get to put on a cap and gown and finally start the “real work.” This is more like a lifelong internship- keeping my ears and heart open, knowing that my next “patient” could be the girl I’m playing in tennis tomorrow.
So my current spiritual lull that I’m in? IT’S OKAY. It’s not even that I’m having DIFFERENT experiences… I’m just not really having ANY experiences right now. BUT THAT’S OK. A couple weeks or months off isn’t going to kill my semester grades. That’s what’s been on my mind lately- “what am I NOT doing?! Why isn’t meditating working?” And then when I overthink it… anxiety. And anxiety equals getting in my own head and blocking out the very thing who’s absence is making me anxious. Vicious circle, I tell ya. 😉
I wanted to share this last little story too. It might beget more questions than it answers, but it was sort of mind blowing to me. So, I’m an avid watcher of Hollywood Medium. It’s a show starring a 20 year old named Tyler Henry, and from what I can tell- this kid is as legit as they come. He’s such a good mix of giving solid evidence while also being extremely empathetic. It’s really a perfect example of how I would love to work someday. Well, I came across an e-book a few weeks back (I’ll have to link to it in an update.) The text was mostly philosophical and way over my head- but one paragraph caught my attention as I was skimming. It repeated the question I had been unknowingly asking for so long- Tyler Henry is 20. TWENTY. I didn’t even have my first spiritual experience until I was 25- what’s the deal??? Why do some people connect with Spirit so easily (especially at young age) while others have to work so hard at it?
The answer they gave was that connecting with the other side takes a LOT of work, and people who it seemingly just “happens” to (like Tyler Henry) have just simply already put the work in.
LIKE
IN
A
PAST
LIFE.
…
Whoa. Makes SO MUCH SENSE. But the disheartening part… I realized I may not be a junior now until I’ve died and come back again. Yeesh. Doesn’t heaven have any legacy admissions?
p.s. I’m working on ending the lull- and I definitely feel like I’m emerging from it finally. Meditation is the key (man they’ve been saying that for ages haven’t they?) and I’m moving toward putting that into daily practice. I just watched one of my London teachers, Andy Byng, give a talk the other day, and I took this from it: “Break down your meditation. Master each piece. Then put it together.” I’m working on it, Professor!
Move over, Tarot
I’ve always been a skeptic. I needed a spirit to talk to ME before I really ever TRULY believed it was happening to others. And yet now, even after getting my proof, I’m still on the fence about “divination tools.” Tarot cards, crystals, tea leaves- you name it. I mean, maybe they work, but they really aren’t for me. I would have lumped color into that category too.
So, it was a big surprise when I was at ghost school (i.e. the Arthur Findlay College,) that color was a big focus of our learning at the beginning. P.S., if i hadn’t made this clear in previous posts, it was sort of a running joke that my group and I were in the kindergarten class. We were the beginners, and everyone knew it, so it was sort of fitting that we were doing some coloring of sorts (see picture above.) What we came to realize, though, is that we had the last laugh, because we were doing some pretty FUN stuff that the others were not. Which is not to say bringing messages through from spirits isn’t fun, but this particular exercise taught me a lot about connecting to someone “psychically, ” also something I would have easily dismissed before last week.
Before this exercise, we learned about the particular meanings each color has, and what information one can glean when colors show themselves in auras, readings, etc.. To further the lesson, our tutor, Sue, had each of us melt our choice of encaustic wax onto a 5×7 piece of specialized paper using a flat iron. The idea here was to not think about it too much. Just to go right away with your gut, with both what colors to choose and how they melt: your guide would help you to make it just right for others to read. (Thus, each persons card is individualized to them, and them only.) The above image is what I produced.
We then took our cards and went around the room, reading each others’ wax works. The kicker here was to try to blend psychically with the other person, so that your messages to them are inspired by not only what they are projecting with their energy, but also possibly what your guides (and anyone they choose to allow in!) are telling you.
I can’t say I remember a lot of the particulars in the readings given to me. I think it had to do with nerves, and me worrying about having to go in the next group. I do know that at least one person picked up on the “R” in the middle left of the image, which led them to bring up a very important father figure in my life who passed quite a few years ago. Now flip the card around….
…and voila! More stories to tell. My favorite is the almost black and white closeup of the tide receding on the sand. See it there in the purple? And how it’s reflecting the sunlight?
What I do remember most from the card readings are the ones I did for other people. Before my first reading, I was a Nervous Nellie. I had never worked with color before, or even tried to read someone without a direct smack on the back from spirit. I was just sure I was going to sound like an idiot- “I see a lot of swirls which tells me you are very confused most of the time!” HAH! Once I started, though, it was if the information just flowed almost effortlessly. I would see a shape in their card, and it just triggered this knowing that I was then able to communicate back to them. It wasn’t always literal- but for me it was as if my guide (or her aura?) would lead me to see something in particular. Once I saw the wax take form into some shape, I could then quickly surmise what it meant. (This is where you can’t think too hard, though, much like mediumship. Just trust the information you are being given in real time, because once you bring your own brain into overthinking it, you ARE gonna sound like an idiot.
One person in my group allowed me to share her card, so I could explain what I got from it. Check this out:
From this card- I asked the woman if she had two children. “Yes.” One boy and one girl? “Yes.” Does the girl have more of an outgoing personality? “Yes.” Is the boy older? “Yes.”
Seriously. I didn’t get one thing wrong with these details. Can you see anything there that would give you this information?
There they are. Two faces: one in the “blue”, one in the”pink” that told me about her family. Boy is on top so he’s older. His “meh” face told me he wasn’t as social as the younger girl.
And yes, I’m still in shock. My intuition/guide basically told me where to look and what to think. That’s some weird shee-yat right there.
From then on- I felt like the psychic gung-ho master with everyone’s cards. “You have unresolved issues with your father, don’t you!” “You’re really stuck in a rut!” HAHA! It probably did sound just that cheesy, but the thing is, I knew it was true!
I also took an aura photograph that I’m excited to share. I thought I’d get to it here, but this could quickly turn into a novel that way. In the next post, I’ll share my photograph, explain what the colors stand for (which is also part of the wax reading, but I don’t know that I utilized that aspect very much in this exercise,) and what they meant (for me) where they fell into my aura.
Lovely. Now I’ve got myself all geeked about this wax stuff again and am looking on amazon for a quick start kit. Let me know if you have any recommendations- brand? colors? And then c’mon on over and play- I’ll need the practice!
I am a medium.
When people ask me how my week was, I’m still trying to form my thoughts. I saw demonstration upon demonstration that would turn any skeptic in to a believer right then and there. I met loads of people who were in the exact same position I was. But as I touched on in the last post- the word of the week for me was “subtle.” My tutors (I’m so UK now) confirmed what I had begun to realize; my signs from the spirit world were not going to be as huge moving forward. They have my attention now, and aren’t using so much energy (which apparently isn’t easy for them) to chat anymore. The big stuff is for the people who aren’t listening! (Which leads me to a funny story that I just have to tell real quick…)
My tutor John told me about a woman who had called him, exhausted about weird things happening in her home. She said three other mediums had come in and basically ran away with their tails between their legs, at having failed to expunge the evil presence at her house. John said he was there doing his thing for about two minutes when he said to her (in his Irish accent) with a laugh, “Your grandfather doesn’t appreciate being called evil.” He said the woman just started at him wide eyed.
“What!?”
“I said, your GRANDFATHER doesn’t appreciate being called evil.”
John explained that he told this lady that the presence was not some demonic evil thing, but her grandfather hanging around. He said she just needed to acknowledge the spirit presence, and tell it that you know it’s him! And also, that she would appreciate if he would stop, as he was frightening her. John told me that after they did that, the incidents ceased. See? she just wasn’t listening. Haha!)**
Alright, back to the task at hand: I AM a medium. That was one question I answered for myself last week. There is no way I could walk away from this now. As we were discussing booking this trip to Arthur Findlay College a few months ago, my husband, Casey, asked me, “What do you want to do with this? Where do you see this going?” and in the past, if I didn’t have the answer, I would have backed down with a lack of confidence- as if I knew I needed to do some more research and make sure I knew my next move before I dove in.
But THIS time, all I could come up with was, “I don’t have an answer. I just know that I have to go.” I don’t know how it’s going to pan out! Will I be a medium who gives personal readings? Who does platform demonstrations in a church? A medium who writes books? Will I be able to sense spirits just hanging out in a restaurant? See auras?
I have none of these answers. I don’t even have a preference, necessarily. I also don’t know if someday I will be able to contribute to any sort of college funds or family vacations with this as a profession. All I know is that – this is me.
Can anyone be medium? I dunno. I DO think we can all be psychic, but maybe being a medium is more of something that is part of your soul’s DNA. And as one of my tutors Andy Byng, pointed out, “I want to help people” isn’t really the answer to “why do you want to be a medium?” Doctors help people all the time! So do teachers and firefighters and… roofers! So it can’t be just that. He went on to say that the meaning of life is to LIVE! To live as who you were meant to be to best flesh out your soul’s purpose. So in the same way that one may have had the soul calling to become a journalist or a nurse or a dancer or an artist, I AM a medium. Radio DJ didn’t fill my soul- it got me free dinners and tickets (and some badass backstage passes that I dearly miss.) TV weather girl didn’t get me closer to loving people- It just filled my ego (people now knew who I was by sight, not just my voice! Yay.) Photography? It was actually probably one of the catalysts to opening this spiritual door for me. It allowed me to photograph people, especially teenagers, and use a camera to help them feel beautiful and confident. It opened my eyes to how much some of us need that! But, in the last few years, it just hasn’t felt like my thing.
No, I am a medium. Nothing else has ever felt truer to me.
Now, saying that is only part of the equation. It doesn’t mean that I have all the skills to successfully connect everyone with their loved ones who are in spirit. It means that I now know, if i put in the hard work, I have a fighting chance at having some confidence when it does happen. There were two times throughout the week that I had full confidence that I had truly connected with a spirit, and I talked about one of them in my last post. But what I didn’t get a chance to talk about yet was the other two or three that felt like I got nowhere. I could go into all the reasons it probably wasn’t working, but most importantly, it highlighted that it’s still my responsibility to tread lightly. (Thank goodness the people I “failed” with weren’t actually there for some answers!) I have had many people approach me for a reading, but I know there is a fine balance between them needing some closure and guidance and a CONNECTION with their loved one, and me needing some PRACTICE. What if I can’t provide the connection? The bottom line is, I need to connect with spirit on my own time and terms over and over again before I can trust it to be there when someone ELSE needs it. I owe that to us all.
Now- how will I do that? It’s not just meditate meditate meditate. It’s SIT IN THE POWER sit in the power SIT IN THE POWER. This means when I sit quietly, I don’t need to quiet my mind- I need to sit in my own aura. (Stay with me here. I know this is sounding weird from me. Hahah!) Simply put, it’s active meditation, where you really focus on your inner energy and building that and spreading it out to be something that other auras can easily blend with. SHEESH, IS THAT ALL??? Once you really know what that feels like, you can then practice with your spirit guide, by alternatively asking them to blend and back off. (Hmmm…”Back off” sounds aggressive… maybe I should say “de-blend?” Yeah. I’ll use that going forward.) OK- so blend, de-blend, blend, de-blend. And try to notice the subtle shifts in your energy. Notice any physical changes. Does your face tingle? Do you feel a tight band around your brow? When I did this exercise, it felt as if the air around my skin just got tighter, like a higher pressure (although at other times I have gotten the tingling and the brow band and my nose will tickle too!)
Once you get used to THAT exercise, then you can ask your guide to bring someone in that wants to connect. If someone does show up, you may feel differently yet again! (I feel like this is some PHD sh*t, so I’m not expecting to necessarily get there anytime soon, but I’ll keep working!) (PS. Also, your guide is your gatekeeper. They won’t let in just anyone, so stop stressing about being taken over and whatnot. ) The takeaway from this is simple even if the work ahead is not: know what your being/self/aura feels like on its own well enough that when that changes, however subtle, you can recognize it.
Thats where I’m at now. That does NOT mean that you shouldn’t ask me for a chat or a reading- I can’t predict what spirit will do. In fact, usually when someone approaches me about needing some help with connecting to someone, Spirit will end up tapping me on the shoulder soon enough to make it happen. And, as in the case a few weeks ago when I got the “uncle, affair” message before I went and picked up the chair from my friend, sometimes those messages will be for those who weren’t expecting them! (Although I promise not to give them to you if you don’t want them… or in public. )
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so wordy- I have many more things I need to post from the week! Wax color readings (I’ll share that next!) and aura photographs (so so cool. I totally thought it seemed like such bulls*&t, but it was AWESOME.) For this post though, I will wrap up with a thought- and maybe I’m just working this out for me, but I’m gonna share:
Right now, I think I AM fulfilling my purpose. RIGHT NOW, I am a”blogging medium,” simply trying to explain all this weird weird stuff to not only myself, but to people who knew as little as I did two years ago, using words we all understand, without all the unnecessary “woo woo” goodies. Maybe, just maybe, someone else who got hit with the cast iron spirit skillet will happen across this and know that there are others who trudged this path before. Maybe you, reading this right now, have gone through much of life calling BS on all of this stuff but then read some of this and went, “Shit. I know her, and she just does not seem the type to make this crap up.” Once I start speaking in tongues, I’m thinking maybe you wont be able to relate to my experience anymore … but RIGHT NOW, this is a start.
Always Mention the Pipe (Ghost School Part 3) “Reading One”
Ghost school is evolving. We first started out learning the basics about it all: color meaning, pyschic energy, etc., but now we have actually moved on to real readings. There are probably a lot of really fun stories inside the last two days, but I know that the really interesting part is the readings and the evidence – so let’s talk about that first!
I’m finding that one of the biggest things I will take away from this week is that messages from spirit are actually quite subtle. Remember how in the beginning of this journey I described it as being hit over the head with a “spiritual frying pan?” Well now, as one grows in their awareness, it’s kind of like they throw a feather at you. And it’s real easy to brush off that touch as nothing more than just a whisp in the air.
Being in the beginner class (with our instructor Sue) yesterday was the first day that we gave it a go. We all took a turn standing up in front of the group and seeing what came through. Some of us had an easier time than others, but again, a lot of that I think can be explained with how confident you are in your abilities. If you aren’t either confident enough or aware of your own being enough, then you will indeed disregard a piece of information as something in your own head (or start to make sh*t up, really.) But if you can sort of let go and just go with it – it can be pretty amazing what comes out of your mouth.
Our group was taking turns getting up in front of the class to try our first reading of the session. I volunteered to go second. My stomach was in knots and I was very unsure of how this was going to pan out. Our teacher is fortunately extremely encouraging, though, so I didn’t feel rushed to try and make some connection. I sat there with my eyes closed for probably about 10 seconds- wherein I had all of these different sorts of relationships swirling through my mind: Grandmother, grandfather, sister, cousin… but only when Sue said “you’re brushing them all away!” did I finally think,
“OK I’m just going to pick the next one.”
The next piece of information that came into my head was very small and very quick, but it was a definite feeling of grandfather and “it” was actually about waist height and came through as sort of a triangle with the top pointed away from me to the left. (Only after I was done did I finally figure out that the arrow was actually pointing to the person the spirit belonged to.) I said, “I have a grandfather here.” Quickly after that I got a feeling that this gentleman was sort of meek in his presence. He didn’t have a big personality, and there actually seemed to be a bit of regret in this. “What caused him to be this way?” the teacher asked. I was impressed with the knowledge that it stemmed from his relationship with his mother, and her making him feel… unworthy, if you will. As I relayed this information to the group, I got a vision of some wood posts… sort of in the shape of a house that would just be beginning to be built, like a very simple frame. I also quickly saw the word “carpenter” or “carpentry.” I took this to mean that this grandfather was probably a carpenter in his life. So I relayed that information, too.
The next thing I saw was a quick image of this man – almost like a headshot. It was an old man in his 80s or early 90s with one of those newsboy caps on that button in the front so that they’re flat. The man also had a pipe, but the pipe sort of flickered, and quickly went away, even faster than the image itself. I also saw some glasses, but again I was unsure of those as well. When you are in the moment, it’s kind of like “did I just see that?” Because now if I say “this man wore glasses” and I got that wrong – I probably just have completely thrown off the person who this was intended for.
The teacher finally puts me on pause to see if anyone recognized this man as someone they knew.
Silence.
So she has me recap… “I have an old man, with a paperboy hat on who was more softspoken and behind the scenes, was a carpenter,” and then I finally revealed, “and he also showed me a pipe.” This is when Amy, a girl in my class, finally raised her hand. She said, “everything fits… except that my grandfather wasn’t a carpenter.”
Hmmmm, I decided to explain what I had seen, which was simply a wooden frame, and then the word “carpent…” I truly never did get the last few letters, and also just assumed that this information meant his livelihood. Amy spoke up again, “oh that’s the rabbit cage. We built that together.” Aha! I then heard grandpa say to me, “that’s right!”… so I knew we had the right recipient.
I was still fairly nervous, trying to pull out any piece of information I could from the spirit. (Believe me when I tell you, the few things I had just told the group are not even remotely up to the rigorous standards of this school, so thank goodness I’m in the beginning class. Anything else and they would have kept pushing and pushing for more: something I’m not quite confident enough to do yet. It’s gonna take some practice!) The last thing he gave me was the feeling of giving her a gift, and that gift was the knowledge of his regret- that he wished she could learn from his desire to “speak up more! Be a part of the discussion and don’t be afraid to let your voice be heard.”
After class, I asked Amy some questions about her grandfather. She said he always had that hat on, the paperboy hat, and she was just waiting for me to mention the pipe before she raised her hand. I told her, “well I was unsure of the pipe, because it sort of flickered and went away.” She then informed me that his pipe smoking was done in secret- that he would go outside to do it. BING!
Amy didn’t know much about his relationship with his mother (her great grandmother) so that is something she said she would check into.
I’ll let you know. 😉
Ghost School – part TWO
It’s been two days now… I feel like I’m at camp! I got to the Arthur Findlay College on Saturday, with only five minutes to spare until the week officially started. It would have been 15 minutes but my taxi driver and I started talking about how the locals called this place “spook hall” and how he was only 96% convinced of all this stuff and that he had lost his son three years ago and he wasn’t sure there was much to live for anymore. Sigh. I would have stayed out there another 20 if it had meant I could give him some peace. I took a picture of his badge and vowed in my head to try to get a hold of him after this week was over and when I hopefully had some more tools in my kit.
Night one was mostly getting acquainted with the place and the teachers. Having run a bit late, I missed meeting with the “headmaster” Paul, who had already chatted with the other students and parsed them into groups according to experience. So, after Paul’s first formal address to the group, I was finally “sorted” into Hufflepu, errr… Sue’s class. (Ha! I’m sure they haven’t heard THAT one before.) Sue’s class is the beginning group, which is exactly where I’d hoped to end up. I wanted to start from the beginning, even if it meant I’d rehear some things.
The pluses?
*Tea everywhere, and real milk to put in it! Hallelujah!
*Three solid meals a day that I don’t have to cook any of!
*We are in a beautiful Manor with more nook and crannies and doors and stairwells than I can count (we had the discussion yesterday of whether this was a castle and my new London friend gently offered “manor” as a more fitting term.)
*I’m meeting amazing new people who all get what I’m going through and trying to achieve (even if I don’t know exactly what that is yet…)
The petty negatives?
*Downtime is hard to come by, so I’m really having to carve out a few extra minutes to write some of this experience down!
*My roommate is a lovely older woman from France, but she really likes to keep the room hot. I wait until she falls asleep and I get down on the floor with my iphone flashlight and turn down the furnace. Sneaky! But then she wakes up in the middle of the night and closes the window. Ugh. I do feel like I’m winning this fight, though, because last night I woke up to find her blanket-less, hot, and splayed out on her bed. I shall use this against her tonight when the battle resumes.
*Electricity. I thought I was SOOOO on top of things when I brought my little plug converter. Turns out, though, that its actually a three prong to two prong, the one that a European would bring to the US to convert THEIR appliances. So… I have resigned to having terrible hair all week. Thank goodness I brought lots of hair ties.
Sunday was the first full day of class, and my beginner group worked on psychic communication (as opposed to mediumistic type.) I’m simplifying it, of course, but that means merging your aura with the aura of another physical person. This is something many of us do already, YOURSELF INCLUDED. It’s how we know things about people without them even saying. (We will begin to work on mediumistic communication in the coming days- and that is where the medium merges their aura with the aura of a NON physical soul. Get it?)
Sue also talked about one of the hardest things mediums have to overcome, which is knowing when the information coming through is actually from Spirit or simply our own imaginations. She had us do an exercise where we closed our eyes, quieted our mind, and tried to really start to identify what it feels like to be in our own aura. Then, she would ask our guides to merge with our aura, where we could then take note of if we felt any differently. For me, the change was subtle, but I could definitely feel like my surrounding space got tighter. Like as if the air around me became a form fitting security blanket. When Sue asked them to retreat, so did the air around me.
*Side note- I am chuckling over here in this castle manor because I cant believe we have come so far with this. My first blog post I was belittling crystals and tarots, and now I’m having a serious discussion about auras. Thank you for reading with a straight face, if you are. HAHA!
I now have only a few minutes left until I have to be in the sanctuary for our morning meditation… so I will wrap this up until the next “ghost school” update. I am excited to share some images of my new friends and my hot roommate. Cheerio!
Ghost School- part one
I’m at the Houston airport… ready to hop on a plane to London… by myself… for a week. Aaaaand, I’ll be taking a class in mediumship at a place called Arthur Findlay College. (More to come on this place once I get there in about 12 hours. Also, I still think “ghost school” has a nice ring to it.) But first, guess I should fill in the blanks on how I got to this point, huh?
Alrighty then, let’s start with the story that I should have written down already about my medium class in Houston. In late 2016, I received an email announcing a class at Spirit Quest, which is one of those stores where they sell all the woohoo goodies like crystals and stuff. It was going to be taught by a gentleman named David Scott, whom I actually had a reading from years ago in Dallas! (Well, “reading” is subjective, as I hadn’t really needed to hear from any loved ones on the other side, I really just wanted to pick his brain about my first spirit encounter: the nanny/blue hair/yellow Cadillac incident. I had actually seen him twice, the first was an amazing group reading where he gave me messages about my grandmother.) So, I signed up gleefully and went to this four hour class on some late Sunday of last year.
Now, David Scott is all business when it comes to mediumship. Basically, you’d better prove yourself to the client before you start giving them messages. EVIDENCE is the key. And if the details dont match up? Well, the message just isn’t for them then. Which leads me to the part of the class I wanted to tell you about. After a few hours of listening to David discuss such matters as the difference between phsychic and medium messages and the physical and astral plane, he asked us if anyone wanted to give it a go… meaning stand up and… be a MEDIUM.
There were only about 6 of us in the class, and nobody was raising their hand right away… so… “OK I’ll go!” This is what I came for, right?
I stood up in front of the small group… mind racing and adrenaline surging… I’m always still so afraid this isn’t going to work! I closed my eyes to try to get into my subconscious space where I can hear/see/feel what Spirit is giving me. I’m sure David gave me some sort of speech to proceed, but all I remember is closing my eyes and having this black blob figure pop up right in front of my face. It was as if my mind’s eye was a movie screen, and someone just popped up right into it from below the projector. I opened my eyes and told the group excitedly, “A lady just went “bloop!” right up into my face! (For some reason, it made that sound to me. Bloop! Like a cartoon sound. Ha! And also, I knew it was a lady.)
David encouraged me to get some more information from her. “Good. I feel her here too. Who is she? What does she look like?” I closed my eyes again, and she was now standing further away, so that I could make out her full outline. She was still all black, but not dark with a bad connotation; I just didnt see any features. Right away I could tell she was short and a bit round, and she was someone’s grandma. Her hair was dark- about shoulder length. She was like a little Italian grandmother. I also knew she belonged to someone on the far left of the room.
I opened my eyes and shared this information with everyone. At this point my nerves were getting the best of me as they had for much of the class. (David’s overall take away for me all day was “You’ve got to get out of your own way.” Basically, it’s hard for me to stay listening to my subconscious for very long. I keep getting distracted by my surroundings and conscious brain and break the connection with Spirit often.) David helped me continue, “OK, ask her how she died.”
I closed my eyes again and just repeated that question in my head to the black blobby grandma. (Ha! Sorry.) “How did you die?”
RIGHT AWAY, the word “diabetes” is written out before me (at an angle, interestingly enough. Odd.) I immediately looked at David excitedly, “She showed me the word diabetes!”
This is where David being a medium requiring strict evidence came into play. “Well, from the woman you described, it sounds like it could be my grandma,” he started. “But it also could be this gentleman’s grandma,” as he pointed to the man next to him. “Both of our grandmas were Italian, short, round, and with shorter black hair, but MINE didn’t die of diabetes. So this woman is NOT here for me,” he stated matter of factly. “Did yours?” he asked, looking at the other man.
“Yes,” the man affirmed.
WOO HOOO! Perfect! Can I sit down now?
No. Not so fast. David pressed, “Does she have a message?”
I concentrated on this for a moment, and then I just started talking. I just felt like I had a story to tell. It was as if this spirit grandma had just opened up her mind dumped into my head what she wanted to say. “She says when she was alive she would cook these big elaborate meals and everyone would get together and eat and it made her so happy! But now that she’s gone that isn’t happening anymore. You guys don’t get together anymore.”
Dave took control again and asked the follow up to the man, “Do you understand this? Yes or no?” (That’s another part of being evidence based. The person being read just says yes or no, as to not give anything that could be misconstrued as hints to the medium.)
“Yes, ” the man said.
GREAT! We’re done here, right? “Ask her to share a memory with you,” David prodded me. Argh. I realized I was going to have to wrap this bad boy up myself. (I guess I wouldn’t end a reading with a real client like that, would I?) I then asked grandma for a memory and was shown her and a young boy standing at a stove. The boy was on a stool so he could reach the pot that grandma was stirring, she trying to teach her grandson the recipes and techniques she used. I told the man of this vision, and he turned a bit sad as he recounted that she had wanted to teach him to cook, but he was never interested in learning and always wanted to go play outside. It was only then that I finally utilized my best learned television-medium-techniques of “letting spirit step away” as I told him that she would just like to see them try to get together again, without her, and then thanked him and sat down.
*****
Now. Back to the ghost school in London part of the post. David Scott, medium teacher extraordinare, studied there. (As did another girl in my class that I will tell you about tomorrow – she’s actually going to this same class too! AyYayYay- I have so much to tell- so little wifi.) Anyway, I literally kept hearing this Arthur Findlay school mentioned over and over again, via numerous sources. So, I decided to finally listen to what Spirit was trying to tell me… and GO. And that brings me here. To the Houston Airport. Where I am about to board a plane to ghost school. 🙂
(I’m literally minutes away from getting on this plane -they are boarding already!- so please forgive the hodgepodge and initial spelling and punctuation errors- I will fix those in a bit but wanted to get this out before I hop on a 10 hour flight. ) More to come tomorrow- hopefully lots of pictures and good stories in store!