What’s the difference between tarot cards and Oracle Cards? I get asked this question all the time!

When I was 17 years old I got my very first personal Oracle in the form of a tarot deck. It was the Rider Waite Tarot and it changed my life forever. 

Have you heard the same saying or phrase from several different people in one day? Do the same numbers keep showing up over and over again during your daily routine? Did someone happen to mention the same person you were just thinking about.

You may chalk all this up as just coincidences, but these are clear signs that your soul is knocking at your door! Sometimes it could be a soft tap or for those times when you’re not really paying attention, it could be a much louder bang!

The Ham-sa (or So-ham) mantra has been used by yogis and meditators for centuries to align with the breath—inhalation and exhalation—and experience divine connection, or Presence. One translation of the Sanskrit syllables is “I Am That,” meaning: all that is, or the universe. The repetition of these sacred sounds centers meditators in the stillness within and connects them to universal consciousness. With consistent daily practice (sitting or walking), an individual can increase awareness of both inner and outer Presence, ultimately discovering that they are one and the same.

I am much more fascinated with near-life experiences, however. I do not know what happens when we die. I have a sense of it, yet no deity or God has told me to tell you what happens for sure. As a spiritual leader, I am going to continue to leave that mystery to my Creator. I am more interested in what happens while we are living than I am in spending my life in the unknown of what happens when we die.

I am more interested in not dying while I am living. I am more interested in teaching and facilitating processes that encourage people to have more life experiences rather than near-life experiences, or almost fully living experiences.

There is a wonderful quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Many people label their experiences as good and bad, and these labels define their realities. Oftentimes they say,“This is just the way I am. This is my reality.” People may get very comfortable with and accept what they have been told, or state that what is is all there will ever be in their lives.

Reality with a capital R is the absolute truth of God. Reality with a small r is that which we have labeled our truth. We are fortunate when the Reality of God and our reality go hand in hand. We can always change our reality if we are willing to draw from God’s greater truth.

When you look at a flower in springtime, standing there with its beautiful petals and leaves, can you understand that flower is not the life alone that you see coming out of the ground? That flower belongs to a much greater life than the individual expression that you behold and say, “Isn’t that beautiful?” You could never experience the radiance of the flower or utter those words if it were not for the fact that the life of that creation itself belongs to a body, a universe of life from out of which that one flower comes. 

But we don't see the bigger life behind the little one. We only see the little life… which incidentally is why people fear death, because they only see the little life. They know nothing of the bigger life from out of which the little life has come.

We’re all looking for signs from our loved ones who passed, aren’t we? We just need a little reassurance, hope or maybe even some personal relief that they’re in a better place and doing well. As a medium, I can assure everyone that our loved ones on the Other-Side really are okay and they’re already looking out for us. But sometimes we need a specific message for validation.

Please remember this: Your loved ones on the Other-Side send you messages all the time—all you have to do is to be open to receive them. They use all kinds of signs or symbols that can come through in any shape or form.

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, a day I really looked forward to as a child. When I was growing up, I loved the end of each Palm Sunday church service because it meant I would receive a palm. I would spend the rest of that day trying to turn it into something it wasn’t.

Those of us with creative minds enjoy turning a blank canvas into something new. I’ve always had an active imagination, and I’ve always loved looking ahead, imagining what could be, and then working towards making that dream a reality. Sometimes it’s as small as trying to turn a palm into a crucifix, or a garden into a meditative space, or a cluttered room into a streamlined and peaceful oasis. Other times it’s a grander goal. Regardless of the size of one’s dreams, I believe everyone’s mind is capable of imagining what can be. I believe everyone can envision something to make our world better than it is today.

Today, we are constantly inundated with advice urging us to be more, do more, and accomplish more, as if we aren’t enough already. So, we bend ourselves trying to become someone who others will admire. We try to mold ourselves into people we think will be loved. We try to keep up. I think we do this because we don’t believe in our own divinity. We do it because society leads us to believe that we are not enough on our own.

First, you must realize you are asleep, then you are awake.
Then you must die, so you can be born.
You can not be born until you die and you can not die until you wake.
Jungian psychology

I have always enjoyed the story of a multitude of people with Buddha wanting to know how he was so illumined and how he was such a healer and how he could change the vibration of darkness into light. As everyone was awaiting for the lengthy, complicated answer, he replied,” I am awake.”

A good friend of mine recently told me that she loves my writing but doesn’t necessarily relate to the God references. She said she believes in something but doesn’t really have a label for it. She’s not alone. So many of us (myself included) have felt exactly the same at one time or another in our lives. And truthfully we don’t need a label–often language misses the point entirely. Some people and traditions prefer to leave the idea of a creator-being unnamed. Many Native Americans use the words “the Great Mystery.” Makes complete sense to me. I wasn’t raised in a religion, and I used to be put off by the groups who would go around house to house proselytizing about God. That word remained a negative trigger for me right up into adulthood, when I began my own spiritual exploration.

My first attempt at explaining how I thought of spirit at the time was the word “meaning.” I believed there was meaning in the universe because I could feel it in my heart. That’s as far as it went for a while. Eventually, I came to see that the word or description didn’t matter as much as the experience itself. I lost most of my objections to words and labels like God or Divinity. Still, I try to be low key about using them when I write because I know many people are uncomfortable about naming something that is in essence nameless. And it’s unnecessary. The deeper I dive into my soul, the more words fall away entirely. I experience a beingness or oneness that defies description.

Before I had my first child, I was a very sound sleeper. The phone could ring without waking me up. However, from the moment I came home from the hospital with my first son, that changed. I now heard every little whimper from the bassinet that was next to our bed. My mothering instincts had seemingly automatically clicked on, and I became totally tuned into my baby's feelings and needs.

On the inner level, it was a completely different story. Since my feelings and needs were unimportant to my parents, I had learned to make my own feelings and needs unimportant to me as well. I had learned to tune them out and instead be very tuned into others’ feelings and needs.
 

What you are is the love we all need. Love is the truth of who you are. 

Life is a question of attention. When we finally allow ourselves to be who we are, we are able to accept the blessing of our life . . . the beauty that is our life. 

It’s me, your Soul. Remember me? We used to talk a lot, but I haven’t heard much from you. With all that you’ve been going through lately, I feel like you’re pulling away from me.

Times are tough now, believe me I know. I’ve been with you all your life. We’ve been through a lot together. I know what makes you the happiest and I also know what pushes your buttons and pushes you away from your goals and dreams.

Life is inherently full of ups and downs. Good times and hard ones. Things that go our way and others that don’t.

The desire to have certainty and to feel a sense of control is a natural human response to stress, challenges, and the unknown. But living a Spirit-led life means developing a relationship of trust with your higher power. And, inherent in a relationship of trust, is releasing control and surrendering to the flow of life. 

Meditation is essential to students of spirituality. To be still and know is one of our greatest assets in everyday life.

Whether experiencing meditation while sitting with soft music, or walking in meditation near water or at the beach, we are connecting to nature and to ourselves in these moments.

Meditation further develops our ability to see inwardly and to remain peaceful inside, regardless of outside circumstances. We draw from the wisdom that nothing can really happen to us, unless we allow it to happen through us.

Meditation is an amazing practice which clears the way for the “divine knowing” within all people. It creates a sacred space somewhere between what has happened and what is happening, allowing faith to reassure the spirit within. “All is well,” sings my soul.

Religion can be defined as a set of belief systems. The belief usually concerns one or more powers that guide the path of people throughout existence, explain how the world itself came into being, and lay out the proper "way" of living.

Over my years of working as a psychic and coaching other in spiritual matters, the challenge of raising children and having time and energy for a vibrant spiritual practice has come up often. It is not uncommon, when a person has a shift in their inner world, they suddenly want to jump 100 percent into the metaphysical world.

Occasionally seekers wonder how to continue the constant caring for children while honoring their spiritual path.

The frustration of not being able to commit to your new channeling ability or tarot reading skills, is not often brought up in children play groups. If anyone reading this has experienced frustration and guilt because you have very little time for your metaphysical practices you are not alone.

Are you breathing?

The Practice:
One breath at a time.