Spirits (and mediumship) are my favorite thing to write about. But I also like another type of spirit – wine. I got introduced to wine maybe ten years ago through a number of business dinners and the like, and over time have developed a taste for it. I’ve learned a little about it, but I’m no wine snob, that’s for sure. My attitude is that there are only two kinds of wine, the kind I like, and the kind I don’t, and over time, which-is-which may change. I’m especially partial to a good red Zinfandel. Whites are another thing altogether. I keep trying them, and I have yet to find one as good as the reds I enjoy. The only white I’ve found so far is Reisling, and I’ve had a few that are pretty good.
Anyhow, Dan Aykroyd, who was initially famous for playing on Saturday Night Live and went on to more fame and fortune, is a man after my own heart. He likes both kinds of spirits too! In this article, he talks mostly about wine and his winery, but also about being a Spiritualist and Spiritualism in his family (on page 2). Come to find out that he got started with wine in Niagara Canada, right next door to Western New York!
Easter is a complex Christian holiday, when you look into it. As for me, I avoid all the complexity and Christian religious messaging entirely. I focus on what I like about Easter, which is that it’s an indicator of Spring, renewal, and prosperity. These are positive things, no matter what flavor of religion you happen to subscribe to. I wish our Western New York weather would cooperate a little more, but be that as it may, Spring is coming.
Easter provides yet another opportunity for family to get together. As my children are getting older and becoming closer to adults every day, I appreciate the time I get to spend with them, more and more.
In our journey through life, with all its every-day routines and the rest, it’s important to stop for a moment along the way. Take a moment to appreciate the larger forces that impact your day to day living, on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Understand that everything is interconnected. I’ll share a beautiful photo of a Japanese plum blossom tree with you that illustrates this quite nicely.
This is courtesy of hideoy99 at Flickr.com.
Enjoy Easter!
Some folks from Lily Dale went to the nearby University of Buffalo for a psychic fair. The Spectrum, the UB newspaper, interviewed Gretchen Clark. “Psychics, according to Clark, learn to control their intuitions like an ‘on’ or ‘off’ switch. If there is something drastically important, the voices will get her attention.”
“On and off” are important parts of mediumship. You may have a hard time turning it on, particularly if you’re new to it, or just developing it. Or it may turn on when you don’t expect it, or not even want it at the moment. On the other hand, it may be hard to turn it off, and this can happen whether you’re just starting or have been involved with it a long time.
Some mediums have no problem turning it on and off. Others have to work at it and get better over time. My experience has been the latter. In the beginning, I didn’t have much trouble with on and off. Later on, I did a “deep dive” into mediumship, which improved my mediumship, but I also had all kinds of trouble turning it off. I felt like a convienence store that’s open 24×7, in a shoddy part of town. Some good folks would come in from time to time. But there were also plenty of questionable and unsavory characters stopping by all the time, some of which tried to rip off my store, run an extortion scam on me, push me aside and claim ownership and/or management of the store, or otherwise cause trouble. There were fights and occasional police. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t close the store for maintenance to get it cleaned up. Even while I was in the middle of mopping up, people would walk in and tromp all over my wet floors with their muddy boots. Not the way to run a store.
I was stuck. So my convenience store stayed in its shoddy location for a long time, barely making a profit. Eventually, some good people stopped by the store and decided they liked it enough to hang around. They put up security lights and fencing, and in the process, earned my trust. Then they put security people in place, which reduced the fighting and extortion and other illegal and illegitimate behavior.
It got better. More good people would stop by, more often, and the store started making a profit. Later on, the store expanded considerably. The surrounding lots were all available, so they were acquired, and the store was rebuilt from the ground up, not as a convenience store, but a JC Penny’s. The good people came more and more frequently, and liked the merchandise and selection. Now, the store is definitely making a profit, even through the recession/depression. And some day, the store just might be a Nieman Marcus.
To be perfectly honest, in the middle of it, I felt like I was completely crazy, the check-yourself-in-somewhere kind of crazy. If this happens to you, the best bet is to find someone who can teach you or otherwise help you manage the store better. I did not have that luxury. While I knew other mediums, some of which were my teachers, I didn’t view them as either having experience in this area or wanting to deal with it. Everything was always positive-positive-positive, and they never mentioned anything even remotely like it. I knew of no one on the Earth plane that could help me.
Mediumship can be like that, where you feel crazy for some period of time. Or you run into unexpected difficulty. Or perhaps plateau at a point for a long time, thinking you aren’t developing, but you actually are.
Mediumship is a personal adventure, in the most deeply personal of ways. Your path is uniquely your own, and that’s not just lip service, but a very real experience. The failure to recognize this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, whether you’re brand new to mediumship, or are as old as the hills. It’s true in your own experience, but is even more true when it comes to teaching students. Everyone’s path is unique, and your teaching should not only reflect it, but take positive advantage of it.
As difficult as my adventure has been at various times, I do not regret one minute of it. It has taught me many-many things. And I hope that I someday return the favor by helping someone else who’s having problems managing their store.
