Board Session: What is Spirituality?

It fell upon me, starting last Sunday, and continuing today, to lead a discussion on Spirituality at my church. What a heavy topic. Who am I to stand up in front of many people, some old enough to be my parents and even grandparents, and presume to give them any information that they don't already have? Although occasionally I volunteer to lead such discussions, once I have done so, there is always an internal panic of, "What have I gotten myself into?"

I had some ideas of maybe where to begin on a discussion of spirituality, but was still unsure that I would be able to bring anything useful to the table, besides a series of inspirational quotes from men and women wiser and more respected than myself.

My talking board

As on many other occasions where I find myself looking for guidance, I decided to ask The Collective. If you are just finding this blog for the first time, I do this via a talking board.

I sat down at the board with my husband and going through our normal routine of checking to see if there were any important messages for either of us, I asked if there was any guidance that they could give me that would help me with my discussion of spirituality. Of course, they did not disappoint.

The following is the summation that I put together based on the explanations that They gave us about spirituality during that particular board session on June 15, 2013. This includes what they told us directly, and answers to questions we asked. It is all in paragraph form, as I have yet to possess the free time if would take to write up an actual transcript of an audio recording, as I would prefer. I have done so in the past and discovered that it consumes hours that I don't have. As is often the case, They used metaphors to illustrate Their points.

Spirituality

June 15, 2013

Picture a treasure map. Here is a dotted path that tries to explain to you how to get to the X that marks "The Spot." The X, of course, is the Treasure. The thing is, no one really knows what the Treasure is. Sure, there are stories and legends, but no one you know has seen it with their own eyes and lived to tell about it. And even if they have seen it, their description never really helps you, because it's still secondhand information, that is being filtered through another person's lens of interpretation. Also, the treasure map is flat and plain. You see maybe a path to the treasure in a dotted line, but this path does not tell you what you'll encounter along the way. The map doesn't tell you that you'll have to hack your way through a jungle, scale a mountain, fight off wild beasts, or contend with a mutinous crew. It only gives you an idea of where X is and some vague idea of how to get there, and wherever "there" is, you don't even know what you'll find once you get there. 

You have a compass, and it can at least tell you where North is, but it cannot, by itself get you to The Treasure. You also need this infuriatingly vague map. And you need to do your own footwork.

Like a thumbprint, Spirituality is unique for each and every person. And even two people who ostensibly "believe" the same things on paper - they attend the same church, and in conversations with each other agree that they both believe in the same tenets - these two people actually still have their own personal interpretation of their beliefs, that is filtered through their own unique lens. Deep down inside, in their personal little Black Box of Things That They Don't Talk About To Anyone Else, there are shades of belief that make them different than even their most similar neighbor. Each person's experiences, circumstances, and environment make up their own individual Secret Blend of Herbs and Spices that informs that person's Spirituality. In the same way that no two people are alike, there are no two Spiritualities that are alike. 

Therefore Spirituality is a very personal journey for each of us. I am not on the same journey that you are. Our treasure maps look different, and our compasses each claim that a different way is North.

There is an emphasis that it is the Journey that is the most important part. When you watch a movie that involves a treasure map, it's The Quest for the Treasure that takes up most of the movie, no? Sure, we get to the Treasure at the end, but after that the credits roll, gosh, no one seems to bother to ask what happens after that. Maybe because it's not that important when compared to the Search, the Journey.

Spirituality is the Compass. It is oriented specially to each of our own personal Norths. It can help guide us on our Quest. What do I mean, "Personal North?" isn't North the same for everyone? Not in this arena. Each of us has chosen to come into this life for our own unique and personal reasons. We have elected, beforehand, before we are born, to place ourselves in certain circumstances, to place specific sets of challenges in our path, to make our way through life with a particular set of tools, all of these carefully designed to assist us in growing in the way that we need to grow. We have built an obstacle course for ourselves that is custom-designed to target our weakest muscles, so that we can build them up where we are deficient. Because each of our lives is its own unique little universe, we each have our own way North.

What do I mean, by "our own way north?" Well, because we are each different, our priorities are different. What we each value is different. What we each feel is Right and Wrong is different, if even ever so subtly, from our fellow Seekers of Treasure. Your neighbor is not seeking the same Treasure as you, and this makes you unique. What makes us all the same, however, is that we are all seeking A treasure.

And what is this Treasure then? Where is the common ground for all of us, where we can have a feeling of sharing and commonality in a discussion such as this? The Treasure...is Enlightenment. But that may not mean what it sounds like at first.  As I have said, we have each placed specific challenges in our life path that are meant to teach us lessons. When we actually manage to figure out what those lessons are, we have found what we are looking for, we have found The Lesson Plan, The Syllabus. This is Enlightenment. This is The Treasure. 

It doesn't even matter so much if we are able to learn the lessons in this lifetime. To know what they are is the epiphany. The moment of clarity. How would you expect to build a house with no blueprints? You might have a whole stack of building materials and not even be sure what it is that you are supposed to build, or that you are meant to build anything at all. You might be meant to start a bonfire with it all this lumber for all you know. Ah, where are the plans? What am I supposed to be doing with all this stuff? WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA HERE ANYWAY?! The Plan, The Lesson Plan, The Syllabus is your Enlightenment, your Treasure.

What is the difference between Religion and Faith and Spirituality? 

I may have faith that my car is parked outside, but the car is out there, even if I have no faith that it is. That car, in this metaphor, is Spirituality. Now this is just a metaphor, because there are obvious debates about whether anything truly exists outside of our perception of it or belief in it, but just try to roll with the train of thought here.

If Spirituality is the Compass that guides you toward your Treasure, the discovery of your purpose in this life, much like the car in the driveway, whether you have faith that it is there or not, you still have a guide that can point you in the right direction, whether or not you believe that you have such a tool. There can be signs pointing you, and friendly elbows nudging you in the right direction without you even being aware that they are doing so, or believing that this is their purpose. As long as you get to your destination, it doesn't matter whether you are aware of the tools you are using to get there, or how they work. I don't need to know how to build a computer to go on the internet.

Spirituality is a human thing, for this physical life. People on the other side, Spirits, whatever you would like to call our energies once they have shuffled loose the mortal coil have no need of it; they can already see the big picture. They know what The Lesson Plan is. Of course they do; that's how you chose your life before you got here: you needed no Compass then, you knew what to do.

Dead People Don't Care About Lighting

image credit: prairieghosts.com

So recently I convinced my husband to try table tipping. I follow a number of Spiritualist groups on Facebook, and have seen a few of them post about participating in this particular kind of physical mediumship, so I thought I would see for myself what all the fuss was about. That's how I roll. I'm a "see for yourself" kind of person.

Now, I confess, I could have researched it more. I perused a few videos on YouTube, and I surmised that even if you could get the table to move, it would be a very slow means of receiving information, as it looked like you could only ask yes-or-no questions, and the table would tip one way or another. Still, I imagined that perhaps in the same way that the leaf moves around our talking board, via a combination of our energy and "outside" energy from whatever entities are present at the time, that the table tipping concept might work in a similar manner.

My husband didn't want to try it, but I talked him into it. "It's total bullshit," he warned me. I took it with a grain of salt; what was going to happen anyway? If it doesn't work, then so what?

So we used a tiny, antique end table we have here at the house. We sat there with our hands on it with about the same level of casual expectation that we have when we use the board. And: nothing happened. I felt a few brief moments of maybe a pulling sensation, as if the table wanted to tip, but didn't have the momentum, and a bit of a vertiginous feeling myself, but yeah, nothing. Oh well.

I'll probably research this practice more seriously at some point, because I have seen other people do it and I would like to see it work in person, even if it's not a technique I'd be likely to use. Perhaps I was not approaching it correctly? I don't know.

So I searched for "table tipping how to" online. One of the first links I came to was from ehow.com. This ought to be rich, I thought, clicking the link.

The article "How to Talk to Spirits by Table Tipping" featured such gems as "Pick up a special table from an antique shop to give your table tipping a little historic feel," and "Take the table to someone else's home or to a more haunted location if you don't get a response." But none of them made my eyes roll back in my head so much as:

"Provide indirect lighting for effect. Have candles around the room or indirect lighting so that you have a spooky ambiance."

Yes, because when trying to talk to dead people, the most important thing is "spooky ambiance."

image credit: companionspirit.com

This is why we can't have nice things. I can recall a few times when I thought it might be nice to share our board with others who had never used one before, and being asked by one of the new participants, "Should we turn down the lights? Should we light candles?" Just so we're clear: spirits, the dead, whatever you would like to call them, don't give two shits about the lighting in the room, or any special "prayers of protection." Protection from what? People who want to help you?

Now, I agree that I am probably being harsh. If someone has never done anything like this before, how should they know what is important and what isn't? I guess I just get annoyed with the misconceptions that are out there about what talking to the Collective entails. It's not a spooky 80s horror movie. These people don't occupy the physical plane in the same way that we do; it's immaterial to them (literally) how bright it is in the room, what it smells like, what time of day it is, how loud you talk, or anything else like that.

You don't need to be in a "haunted location." The Collective is everywhere and yet not physically anywhere. You can talk to them from pretty much anywhere you'd like. The only preferences I have seen them even express so far is that there not be a whole lot of distractions, like the TV being on, or being with too large a group of people, but that seems to have more to do with the energy in the room than anything else.

Talking to dead people isn't spooky. It isn't mystical. It is as normal as talking to any other person, just these people don't have flesh to lug around. Now let's put on our grown-up pants and stop with the movie lighting effects and silly chanting, mmkay?

Synchronicity for the Day: Numbers No. 4

The last synchronicity I posted here was a matching set of dates that occurred at the moment that I finished reading The Seth Material by Jane Roberts.

Just moments ago, I completed reading the next of the Seth books, The Nature of Personal Reality. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an open mind, by the way, as it will really bring some very new possibilities into your realm of thoughts.

That last was, I feel, a very poorly worded sentence. For some reason I cannot seem to string words together very effectively at the moment. I'm blaming my crummy Mercury/Neptune transit and moving on.

Remnants of Agnes over the East Coast

Anyways, I will quote here an small excerpt from the very last page of the book (not counting the Index section):

"...since Seth took up steady dictation on September 11, 1972, following the extensive delay caused by Tropical Storm Agnes."

What day is today again? Oh, that's right. September 11, 2012. The exact 40th anniversary of the work beginning in earnest on this book. I went back to the beginning of the book, and I did see that the very first entry was on June 7, 1972, but it wasn't until September 11 of that year that another entry was made due to flooding from the storm disrupting the lives of the authors and their surrounding communities. From that point there began regular work on the book.

This is the second date-related synchronicity that I have recently experienced right at the moment I have completed a book, and not only this, but both books were in the same series, and containing material that I felt was very significant to my personal growth, as opposed to just some of the assorted works of fiction that I can rip greedily through in a weekend. I'm excited to read the next Seth book, and these synchronicites are telling me that I am on the right path.

Synchronicity for the Day: Numbers No. 3

Wow, here is a nice one. I just finished reading The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts, one of many books by this author, and the second of which I have completed. I have a stack of more of them at the ready. Their material constitutes fodder for an entire world of posts, so I will not get into it right now. It's late and my contacts are getting blurry. And I'm typing on a laptop, which I hate.

As I am laying down the book, which has nicely been rearranging (or maybe supplementing is a better word) the way I view the universe lately, my attention is drawn to the bookmark I have been using. My typical bookmark consists of either remembering what page number I was on, which often works, or whatever scrap of paper happens to be lying around at the time I get started on the book.

I must have started this book just after a Tarot session, because I have been using as a bookmark, a folded up piece of neon pink paper that had been living in the wooden box where I keep my cards. This piece of paper has been in the box for well over a year. On it was written the birth information of an acquaintance, who had written it down for me so that I could take a look at her natal chart and give her some information. The box was where I tucked the paper away and that's where it stayed, for no good reason, until it recently became a bookmark.

So as my attention is now drawn to this pink piece of folded paper, I suddenly think, hmmm.... and have the urge to unfold it and look at the birth date. I open it up and the woman's birthday written inside is July 23rd (I'll keep the year to myself), 11:30 PM.  When did I put down the book as I finished it? July 23rd, at 11:30 PM. Freaking AWESOME.

I would like to believe that this synchronicity means that I am on the correct path in reading these books, and this assumption has been backed up by my friends on the board as well. When I first stumbled upon these books while looking into another topic, I was intrigued and asked someone we were talking to on the board if the material was worth a read, and if so, how much of it was true? They replied (astonishingly, because they are almost never so absolute in what they say) that it was 100% true and that reading it would save them a lot of time explaining any number of complicated ideas. So far I have not only found this to be the case, but I have also enjoyed a series of validations where a number of very specific concepts were explained in an almost identical manner in the book as to the explanations we had received while using the board when asking about the same ideas months, and even years before I had any knowledge of the books at all.

I don't know how to finish out this post, except to say that that was a beautiful synchronicity, and I appreciated being able to see it.

Love and Peace

Synchronicity Discussion at Universal Mind Science

OK, I have not posted in a seriously long time. I guess I could blame it on the Mercury Retrograde, since he is an easy scapegoat, but this dry spell has been going on for longer than that. I keep telling myself that my next post has to be something on a larger topic, and I think I was putting too much pressure on myself to come up with something awesome, and therefore psyched myself out of writing at all.

So in a sort-of cheater way, this post is actually a summary I wrote of a discussion that occurred over two weeks at the metaphysical church I attend. To be fair, I was the facilitator of said discussion, so much of the material covered came from me. There are also stories related by other participants in the discussion, and excerpts from various research materials.

I am lucky enough to have found a church that does not have a single person who delivers a sermon while there is a mute listening audience who is asked to accept what they are being told without question. Rather, each week we have a discussion that is lead by a facilitator (who is not always the same person every time) and that person brings in some thought-provoking material to help get a conversation started. Anyone can put in their two cents on any topic, as our philosophy is that we are all there to learn from each other. I can't speak highly enough of this group, and this may be for selfish reasons, as they accepted me for who I was right from the first time I visited to see what they were all about. There's no dogma, there's no, "This is the one and only way to be and if you are not this way then you are on a path to damnation." There is only, "Here is my experience. What do you think?" Beautiful. You are made to feel like it is a conversation among equals, not as though there is only one enlightened leader who is going to teach an ignorant flock the ways of the universe. But I digress.

So for two Sundays in July, I mustered my courage and volunteered to lead a discussion on Synchronicity, as this is a topic that I thought would be able to spur a conversation, and that I had some experience with. I was nervous, which is odd for someone who normally has zero problems with public speaking, but everyone reassured me that I needn't worry, and kept reminding me that I didn't have to know everything about everything to facilitate a discussion.

So below are my notes for the two weeks of conversation.  You can also read them at the church's Facebook page. I volunteered one Sunday to create a summary of our weekly discussions for Facebook, and have been doing it ever since, so you are welcome to see more of what I get up to in my free time when I'm not blogging about talking boards.

Synchronicity: Service Notes for 7/1/12 - 7/8/12

For two weeks we discussed the subject of Synchronicity.

What is Synchronicity? It is defined as: "The experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s"

What do we think synchronicity means to us? A very basic idea of what the concept meant to Carl Jung, who coined the term is as follows: "Following discussions with both Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, Jung believed that there were parallels between synchronicity and aspects of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Jung was transfixed by the idea that life was not a series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order, which he and Pauli referred to as Unus mundus. This deeper order led to the insights that a person was both embedded in an orderly framework and was the focus of that orderly framework and that the realisation of this was more than just an intellectual exercise, but also having elements of a spiritual awakening. From the religious perspective, synchronicity shares similar characteristics of an "intervention of grace". Jung also believed that in a person's life, synchronicity served a role similar to that of dreams, with the purpose of shifting a person's egocentric conscious thinking to greater wholeness."

Our group had many personal examples to share with us of synchronous events that had occurred in their lives:


Lara recalled the time in her life when she was considering a move to Chicago - everywhere she looked, there were references to the city, as if the universe were reassuring her that this was the right move to make. One day she was attending a Highland Scottish Festival with a friend of hers and she was explaining to her friend this Chicago phenomenon. Her friend brushed it off as coincidence, but just a few moments later, as her and her friend went to view a bagpipe performance, the first pipe band up to play was from Chicago, as if to prove to her that she was not imagining things and reading into normal coincidences.

Neils discussed his lake house back east, where he said that at an earlier visit, he had discovered that a very large tree had fallen into the lake. He tasked a local man to haul the tree out of the lake and dispose of it, but various circumstances prevented this undertaking from being completed. The next time he visited the house there had recently been extensive, and seasonally uncommon rains, causing the lake to flood, and the tree to float to the surface. Now they were easily able to haul it out of the lake with a rope and cut it up into firewood. What were the odds that they would happen to be at the house just in time for the flooding, when they had no idea who they would have gotten the offending tree out of the lake otherwise?

Richard remembered when his brother, who was born in 1937, passed away. Suddenly Richard began seeing 37s everywhere that he happened to look at numbers: Restaurant receipts, addresses, phone numbers. During a phone call with his sister, she said that she was experiencing the same thing, and they both decided that their brother was trying to send a message to them. At a psychic fair which took place after this had been going on, he received a message through a medium from his mother and the first thing she said was that his brother was OK, which was not a normal conversational gambit from her, to be so direct about such a subject.

An example cited by more than one UMS member concerned a time when the church building was undergoing a remodel. The city inspectors insisted that the building have at least two restrooms, so that there would be both a ladies' and a men's room. As church members scratched their heads, wondering how they would rectify this issue on their already limited budget, a man drove by and introduced himself as a plumber. He said that he had just come from a job and had two toilets he didn't end up using, and wanted to know if anyone would be interested in buying them at a very low price, as he needed to be rid of them. Perfect timing!

A fun example was read from the book: Synchronicity & You, by Frank Joseph : "Few motion pictures were more plagued with production nightmares than the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz.  Among the lesser, although vexing, problems confronting Victor Fleming (one of five directors associated with the film) was something as simple as locating the right kind of coat for the traveling fortune-teller to wear. Incredibly, the studio did not possess a single frock coat that fit Frank Morgan, who portrayed Professor Marvel, or satisfied Fleming. He gave an ultimatum to the head of the props department, saying, "Bring me the coat I want after lunch, or you're fired!" Production had already gone far over budget, so falling behind now on its shooting schedule would result in the film's cancellation. In a panic, the props chief ran from the lot and sprinted several miles to the nearest pawn shop. There, in the back room, he found an old black coat he hoped would pacify the director. It looked about the right size, too. He returned in time for the shoot to find that the long-tailed coat fit actor Morgan perfectly and met Fleming's specifications. Months later, after filming and editing were completed and all the props were collected and returned to storage, the coat used for Professor Marvel's part hit a bureaucratic snag. The item was not in the Warner Brothers stock catalogue, and the prop chief had to explain how and where he obtained it. Turning the collar up to sew in a company label, he was surprised to find a tag bearing the name of its former owner. It read simply, "L. Frank Baum," author of the original Wizard of Oz series of children's books. Baum had already been dead for twenty years, so he could not appreciate this meaningful coincidence, made all the more intriguing because he personally identified with the character who wore the coat, Professor Marvel. The connection was appropriate, nevertheless, in that the 1939 film version did more to popularize his life's work that any publishing effort could have."

We had many questions about this phenomenon:

What counts as a synchronicity? Premonitions? Dreams? Repetition within a short span of time of the same numbers, words or phrases, objects?

Are all these incidents and occurrences happening because we are looking for them, or are they there all the time and it is up to us to use them and open ourselves to them? Or perhaps, are we simply catching an unfettered glimpse of the unifying underlying structure of the universe when our ego consciousness momentarily quiets down? We all had different opinions of which idea was closest to truth, and some of us allowed that it could be any or all of these things, depending on the situation.

During the first week of the discussion the question was asked, "What is the difference between a coincidence, a synchronicity, and a miracle?" When Rochelle, the facilitator of this discussion, was contemplating this question, she received an answer "out of the blue," that was posed as another question to her, "What is the difference between a wave and a tsunami?" The answer was: Magnitude.

The more we take note of synchronicities, the more of them we will see. The universe will show itself to us if we are willing to see it. We talked about how we have to let go of trying to control every aspect of our lives and  let the synchronicities of the world help us.

Synchronicity is a way that we can experience oneness with the universe.

One participant provided an apt metaphor: We are now used to using GPS systems in our cars or on our phones. If we have set out GPS to provide us with directions to a destination, and we you go the wrong way, the GPS will re-direct us until we get where we are supposed to go. The farther off track from the destination we get, the longer and more difficult it will be to get back to the correct path. Synchronicities may be like warnings or guidance trying to nudge us onto the right path. The whole system is self-correcting. If you miss the clues, they will come around again.

We suggested the possibility of keeping a synchronicity journal, so that we may see larger patterns that we are unable to notice when we only look at each small instance separately, especially those instances where we cannot immediately see a meaning behind the event. Not only could we discover larger patterns among our synchronicities, but we would be able to take note of recurring types of incidents that may be specific to us, personally.


How can we interpret the meanings behind these events? Frank Joseph, in the book mentioned above in the Wizard of Oz story, says, "To scrutinize something like synchronicity is to diminish it. We murder when we dissect. In trying to understand the phenomenon, the degree to which we analyze it determines how it either divulges itself or escapes up. Indeed, it is less important that we consciously understand a meaningful coincidence than that we allow ourselves to feel it. What we may never understand intellectually we more certainly grasp subconsciously, with other ways of knowing. People long in contact with synchronous events believe humans have more ways of knowing than most of us realize. they regard the rational mind as a jealous tyrant at all times, who, afraid of losing control, needs to dominate all things at all times and refuses to recognize our intuitive capacity for knowledge through feeling. A concertgoer who confines his attention to the scientific principles of air set in motion through certain vibrations generated by wooden and metal instruments will hear various frequencies of sound, but no music."

As Rev. Jess said at the end of this discussion, "The answers are all there in the æther, until you ask the questions, the knowledge means nothing to you."

Synchronicity for the Day: Music No. 3

I was sitting in my office today, debating with my boss about whether we thought Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was going to be a good movie. He says he thinks it will be visual effects porn but have a dumb plot; I think I will like it. He said he thought the idea was ridiculous, and I pointed out that the movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is in the works for next year, so more tomfoolery is on the way. At that moment, a White Zombie song (More Human than Human, video below) comes on my iPod, which I am listening to with one ear bud in while I work. Nice. The Zombie apocalypse is at hand.

Ok, now it gets even more awesome. As I'm finishing this blog post about a zombie synchronicity, yet another Rob Zombie song comes on the old 'pod. Pussy Liquor (audio below), from the House of 1000 Corpses soundtrack. I just want to make it clear that out of 904 songs on my iPod, there are 3 Rob Zombie songs on there, so that song had a 0.003% chance of playing while it was set to random.

Board Session: Quest for Career

I've noticed that all my posts lately have been about synchronicities, which is OK, but I'm sure it's getting old for everyone but me. So today I'm going to talk about a board session I had last night.

My husband and I use our talking board about once a week, give or take. I would say that most of the time we're usually asking our non-physical friends about practical matters: what's going on with this car I'm trying to buy? Will there be any issues with this trip we're taking next month? Should I go ahead and do this or wait? Last night was no different.

While I am currently comfortably employed, I have recently resumed my job search. I'm getting the bills paid, but the job isn't going anywhere. There is nowhere for me to move up, and I'm not in a position that is going to make me happy forever. So it's time for me to move on. I've been poring over my usual sources of job listings, applying here and there for positions I think I can do, and will meet my needs for a creative outlet.

Our friends on the board have strongly suggested, nay, told me that I need to put the pedal to the metal and get on with applying for jobs, because the timing is right for me to land something great. I feel like a lot of hoopla has been made that this next job will be some sort of big deal; a major step for me in the direction I want my career to go. The pressure is on, so to speak, for me to not fail and find something awesome. They are saying it's going to happen. Astrologically my transits are ripe for a solid opportunity very soon now (in early to mid July I have transiting Jupiter trine both natal Jupiter and Saturn, for anyone to whom that means something), so I feel like I don't want to miss out on some potent growth opportunities that are being handed to me on a silver platter at this point.

So last night we were on the board and we started out as usual, hands on the leaf, waiting for movement. I hear some people giving advice about using talking boards who suggest that you immediately ask if anyone is there, but I think in the last 10 years or so, there has only been maybe one or two times that no one was there, and there were special circumstances which are too boring to elaborate on right now, so we really don't see any need to do this. Whoever is there will start "talking" when they're ready. We just sit there and wait for the leaf to start moving. So the leaf gets in gear and starts tooling around the board, in the typical exploratory manner we have grown accustomed to seeing whenever a "new" person has joined us. They are "looking around" as they like to say, to check out the layout of the board, see what their options are as far as what letters/symbols/etc. they have to work with, and generally gather energy.

I'm not a big promoter of ritual and ceremony - I find that it makes people focus on the routine rather than its meaning -  so I really have no formal way that I feel like I need begin a session, or in which to address our disembodied guest for the evening. These are people as much as any of us, and I feel I should just talk to them in a respectful manner the way I would talk to anyone to whom I was going for advice. I have no need for a bunch of silly formalized language and phrases, trying to mold the session into some sort of candles-and-incense mystic carnival sideshow. As I've said before, it's like talking to a friend on the phone - you can't see them, but you know they're there.

All of that being said, I will admit that because people are creatures of habit, and I am no exception, I've settled into a bit of a routine when we begin a board session. It doesn't have to always go the same way, but it seems so far to me to be the most logical conversational progression. Usually once the leaf has made its initial rounds and settled back on the center All Seeing Eye design, awaiting our questions, I will say Hello (and they will usually say "hello" back; there's a Hello at the top of the board), and then I will ask who we are speaking to tonight. Most of the time they spell out their name. Many of the names are ones that we have never heard of, like Abdus, who we talked to maybe a week ago. I've never heard of anyone with this name, but when you're on The Other Side I guess you get to call yourself whatever you want. The only times they don't spell out their name are when we're talking to someone we are already familiar with, which does happen as we do have some people who are involved with us on a more long term basis. Then they might just move the leaf to their Sun sign (like Sagittarius), or to where it says "You Know" on the board, and we often do know who it is just by the feel of the way the leaf is moving around at that point. Each entity feels a bit different in the way they move the leaf, and we are getting better at ascertaining a number of things from their board-side manner, as it were, such as how much energy they seem to have at their disposal, how experienced they are at using this method of communication, and sometimes even if there are other entities present who are interfering with their ability to talk to us. Last night the person we spoke to called himself Thortin (maybe Thorntin, not sure if I saw an 'n' in there).

Once I know who we're talking to (and I'm mostly asking to be polite; I feel like it's kinda rude to just barge in asking for a favor, i.e. Please Give Me Advice, without even the courtesy of an introduction), I then typically ask if there are any messages that They would like to relay to either me or my husband. Then we proceed from there, trying mostly to ask all of the questions and sort out all of the pressing issues for one of us at a time, and then we move on to the other person's questions. This way there's less confusion about who the message is for.

When we arrived at my turn for messages last night, Thortin said to me (and I'm paraphrasing because I didn't write down the exact words), "I need you to be honest." My husband and I both got the feeling that this was a segue to him asking me a question. I agreed to give an honest answer, and he asked, "Are you ready to be the bread winner?" When I speculated aloud as to what the implications of this question were, he continued saying that if I was ready, it will happen, but that I will have to "give up a little of [myself]". I wanted to know what he meant by that, and he replied that some of the things that I am currently embroiled in I will no longer have time for, namely my Astrology group meetings, and possibly even this very blog. He implied that I would not have as much time for these activities as before. I found this a bit depressing, and said as much. He asked, "Do you want a career?"  We had a lengthy back-and-forth regarding the choices I would have to make - what is most important to me, what am I willing to give up. I chewed on this aloud for a bit and said that what I most wanted was to make my mark on the world, but I didn't want a job that would send me home stressed and unhappy at the end of the day. I would not choose this path if it was going to be lined with unhappiness as a price for making money. I know a number of people whose headaches are in proportion to the size of their paychecks, and I don't want to go down that road. He assured me that this career path They have in mind for me will be indeed hectic, but it will be something that I will enjoy doing. In this case I said that I was, then, in fact, ready once again to kick ass and take names. I have had a good rest in my low-responsibility job for the last year or so, and it's time to move forward. To this, Thortin responded that They have found an opportunity that is the right one for me, and based on my response, They will make a push for me to get a good shot at it.

So now I am going forth with vigor, in hopes that I have some help on this venture. Today I was driving home and (like a total nutbar) talking to myself aloud in the car, planning what I would say to imaginary job interview questions. In the middle of me trying to hone my potential responses, I was treated to the following song popping up on my iPod, when it was set to shuffle:

Once again the Universe is talking to me. Yeah. It's time.