Incident: Hearing Mother's Regret

Instances of spontaneous communication from The Collective are something I would like to make an effort to document, so that I don't forget them. I have the short-term memory of a goldfish and so I need to take notes and make lists or I will forget even the barest necessities like putting on shoes or blinking.

An incident occurred last night that I wanted to write down before it fades from memory. I was attending a meeting of the Southern California Astrological Network where we were hearing a presentation on Family Constellation Work. Honestly, don't ask. It's way too long and involved to explain here what that entails, suffice to say that the facilitator for the presentation announced that her friend and client (I will change her name to "Connie" in this post, for the sake of her privacy) would be our guinea pig for the night as an example of this type of energy work.

As soon as the facilitator (Krista) began explaining what our group was going to attempt during the demonstration, and pointed out that Connie would the focus of our session, I immediately started experiencing/hearing what I felt was a mother or maternal figure who was violently grief-stricken. This being made repeated tearful apologies (obviously not literally tearful, since this was someone from the Collective and not a physical body, but the vibe of what I was hearing felt tearful) for what seemed like something that had happened in the past that was some sort of secret event, that she had not been able to apologize for or rectify during her time incarnate. And then, oddly combined with the regret and grief was also a feeling of very emotional anger. The phrases "should have told someone sooner" and even "f**k you!" surprisingly flashed though my consciousness.  This only took about a minute in real time, and I kept it to myself as I sat there and listened to the lecture. But upon hearing/feeling this I knew right away that this was a message or thought that was meant for Connie.

The lecture continued and we moved into the presentation for the evening. As the process took place, it eventually came up that there was some sort of secret that was causing pain for Connie. After the presentation ended and everyone was packing their things, I felt that I needed to approach her to relay the message I had received earlier.

It is always awkward to approach a total stranger with something of this nature. This setting reduced some of the tension, since astrologers and their friends are usually spiritual types, and can be more accepting of this sort of thing than most, but in normal circumstances, I probably would have kept the information to myself, running home to tell only my husband and having no confirmation whatsoever. I like to get confirmation to these sudden insights as often as I can. I never want to buy into anything when it is first presented to me; I always want proof.

So I approach Connie, my heart racing, hoping I am not about to say something stupid, because, you know, it totally matters what this person who I am likely to never see again thinks of me. I say to her that I'm sorry if this seems weird, but that I sometimes have these sudden flashes of information come to me and I related what I had experienced earlier in the evening and that I felt it was in relation to her.

She told me that it definitely sounded like her mother and admitted that it "made [her] heart pound" to hear that. She told me that she hadn't told anyone else at the meeting this, but that she discovered later in life that her mother had had another baby before her and had to give it up for adoption. She discovered this because she found the sister she never knew about at age 40, and this all came to light after her mother had passed.  She said she learned later that her mother had been very torn up about this event, and the emotional burden of having to keep the secret.

So this was my confirmation that the voice I heard in my head was not just my own internal ramblings, and if felt good to deliver the message. Although this family secret of hers is a sad subject, I was personally on a emotional high for the rest of the night. I love it when I can get communication so direct when I am not using the board. I have nothing against the board, far from it, but this freestyle stuff is happening more and more often and it tells me that I am growing in my ability to discern what is me and what is Them, and because of this they are more willing to talk to me.

As always, everything happens for a reason. Connie and I came together in the same room for our mutual benefit. She to hear a message from her mother and I to be given a confidence boost in regard to my growing proficiency in hearing the Collective.

You'd Better Have a Good Morning. Or ELSE.

I have to say that I find the social obligation to greet everyone you meet first thing in the day with a cheery "Good Morning!" is a bit oppressive for me. Even after specific formal training I have undergone that has helped me understand the logic and value of being a smiling, friendly, font of joy, I still cannot force myself to manufacture enthusiasm for at least a couple hours after I wake up. Never have. What can I say? I’ve never been a morning person. I just can’t seem to get excited about leaving my warm comfy bed before I’m good and ready, which I assure you is almost never at the time of the morning that I have to get up for work. For whatever reason, once I’m physically out of bed, I need an hour or two to become Socially Awake. My interpersonal coffee needs time to brew, if you will. And I’m not alone! I know lots of people who aren’t shot out of a cannon in the morning, and if I know so many non-morning-people, I’m sure everyone else must be aware of their existence as well.  So why is it then, that people in a workplace cannot seem to live and let live in the AM? It’s like, We know that not everybody is super-enthusiastic in the morning, but people better fake it or there’s going to be an interrogation, right here in the breakroom. And if I can struggle past the obligatory Good Morning, some people even feel the need to take it one step further, and want to also know How I’m Doing. And you’d better not come back with a simple “Fine” either. You’d better be Great! “How are you this morning?” “Fine.” Disapproving tone: “Well that doesn’t sound good.” You can almost hear the tisk-tisking, the implication hanging there, heavy with disgust, like Why can't you just get your shit together and just be theme-park-ecstatic like everyone else? Why is it unacceptable to be having just an average day? Why are you made to feel like something is wrong with you if you aren’t singing and dancing at the crack of dawn? No one wants a real answer to the How Are You Doing question anyway. “How are you this morning?” “Meh. I’d rather be home asleep in my beat-up sweatpants and green furry socks that make my feet look like a Muppet's, but I’m here anyway because I’ve got to pay the bills and the boss won't just let me stroll in at whatever time I feel I've had enough sleep and am ready to tackle the day.” Just chew on the reaction you’d get to that one. One of my favorite responses is “I’m alive.” That's my go-to expression for days when I'm just not in the mood to play the False Enthusiasm Game. Somehow this always gets taken as a negative, rather than what it really means, which is, hey, things are humming along at about the normal rate; the needle is not jumping around that much on the seismometer of my life. Not bad. Just average. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. There is a much lower tolerance for honesty in our daily lives than one would expect. If you want me to put on an act for you right after I wake up, then I’m gonna need you to pay me Scale.

A Talking What? How Does That work?

I work frequently with a talking board. That's right, you heard me. No, not a Ouija Board, as I have previously decried, but a fairly unique round board labeled (in appropriately new age jargon) The Mantic Message Mat.  I didn't name it, cut me some slack.

What is a talking Board?

A talking board is a tool that can be used to increase the ease of communication between us (the living) and The Collective (the dead and other non-inhabiting entities). I don't really like the terms "the living" and "the dead", because I feel this has positive and negative connotations, as well as implies a level of activity versus inactivity, however for the sake of time, I may use these words.  Also, technically the living are also a part of The Collective, but since we are typically so unaware of it, I may also use this phrase when talking about them (spirit entities not inhabiting bodies) as opposed to us (live people). 

A tool is something you can use to make a task easier. We could do all that long division, sure. We learned how in school. But most of us own a calculator and pick it up at the mere hint than an equals sign might drop into the conversation.  Need to remove some really tight lug nuts? You could bust out the old tire iron and some elbow grease, but why would you if you had an impact wrench right there? Sometimes doing things the hard way is good to keep oneself in practice and one's muscles in good order, and there is no shame in that whatsoever. In fact it's always good to make sure we don't get rusty. Usually, however, we'd all like to make the most efficient use of our time. When it comes to talking to The Collective, this is where a talking board comes in handy.

There are many ways to converse with The Collective. Too many for me to even list here. One of the more difficult ways (for most people, natural psychics excluded) is to just literally listen for them to talk to you and answer back, and have yourself a whole conversation. There are many terms associated with different versions of this method: Psychic, Clairvoyant, ESP, etc.  Intermediate methods many people call Divination, and these typically utilize various media, skills, and abilities to obtain information. Many of these are familiar to us: Tarot Cards, Rune Stones, Tea Leaves, Pendulum, I Ching, and many more. Most of the time there is some object that is "randomly" (but of course not randomly, the selection is influenced by what The Collective wants you to know) selected or arranged and then the Reader interprets the meaning. The most direct, easiest method (for me anyway) has been the talking board. Ask your question, get answers. No, it's not always as simple as that, but that is a blog for a later date. I almost feel like I'm cheating somehow and I'm just waiting for some sort of spiritual auditor to show up and insist I do things only the hard way. Which is not all bad for me, I must say.

Most talking boards have a few features in common: they are printed with the letters of the alphabet, usually a "Yes" and "No", and perhaps some other shortcut words like "Maybe" to make communication not so tedious. For more information on the many talking boards out there and a bit more on their history, check out Museum of Talking Boards - they have a great collection and a lot of info. Our particular board has the above mentioned text as well as names for family members (Mother, Father, etc.), days of the week, numbers, and around the outside a zodiac wheel  complete with all signs of the western zodiac (Capricorn, Libra, etc.) and an assortment of additional appropriate astrological associations for each sign and house, including dates. This enables a lot of shortcuts in getting information across without having to spell out every single word. The other thing common to almost all talking boards is a leaf, or planchette (as you prefer). This is a smaller instrument  that usually features either a pointer at one corner or an "eye" through which to view the desired letters, and upon which each participant places their fingertips and lets The Collective make use of their bodies' energy to move the leaf around the surface of the board and get their message across.

Focus!

As a tool, the talking board acts as a focus for the people wanting to receive information. To some extent, we can all hear The Collective, even without a board, but many of us (myself included) frequently have our minds so cluttered up with ongoing chatter and nonsense that we are lucky if we hear anything relevant at all. And if we did, we would just assume it was more of our own brain rattling around in our head and dismiss it as nothing of worth. When you use a talking board, the moving leaf (pointer) can cut through all of that clutter and get right to the matter at hand. Imagine being in a crowded room where everyone is talking and someone  across the room is trying to say something to you, but they are not able to yell. Good luck hearing them. But then imagine they pick up their cell phone and call you. Now they can speak right into your ear and their voice is separate from the din. This is what it is like to use the board. And unlike other Divination methods, like Tarot (which I do not disparage and in fact use myself), there is far less interpreting that must be done. I don't feel that I have to second-guess the message when it is spelled out for me and I have the opportunity to ask for clarification if I don't understand. Again, not to say this can't be done with other methods, I just personally find it a lot harder, and some of that stems, to be quite honest, from a lack of self-confidence in my abilities.

Round Boards Versus Square

Our talking board has a round design, which I have been told is the preferred shape for such a tool. Who told me this? Dead people, of course. Why should I believe them? Well, in short, because they are right about a whole lot of other stuff, which I have no room to explain here. I will, just not today. They have explained that the round design allows for a circular flow of energy to happen as the leaf is making its way around the board, and this circular pattern is what attracts useful energy to the board (i.e. talking to someone who has something pertinent to tell you, or just has a helpful attitude) and keeps out less useful energies (entities who are trouble-makers or possibly not "all there" to whom talking will do you no good). I try to put reasonable terms on types of energies, as I don't like to get into "Good and Evil Spirits". Ooooooh!! Booga Booga Booga!  That's all very dramatic and Hollywood, but to be honest, the dead are pretty much the same mix the living: most are good and want to do right, some have issues, some are a pain in the ass. But no one is going to come through a talking board and possess anyone. So let's everyone calm down with that nonsense, OK?  Sure, you can get a rectangular board to work for you, but you have an increased likelihood of conversing with an entity who only spells out swear words and other useless babble. Demons? Possession? Not so much. Not to say no one has ever caused some nutty stuff to happen, but a supreme amount of dumbassery, which you would have to go out of your way to accomplish, is necessary for that.

Our Board - The Mantic Message Mat

Our talking board, as I mentioned above, is titles "The Mantic Message Mat." It has a copyright date of 1973 on it, and notes Glendale, California as the location (see picture at right). This board was clearly made by a professional printer, but my husband and I have never encountered another board like ours anywhere else. The story, as it was told to us by his grandmother (from whom we obtained the board) is that a friend of hers designed it and wanted to make a test batch to be able to give a few to her peers and see how they performed. Apparently this woman had a friend in the printing business who ran a special lot for her of around 30 boards. Hubby and I are in possession of 2 of them, and we do not know where any of the remaining boards are at this time. It does not appear that after the initial run of boards that any additional were made.  I have heard debate that this board must have been mass produced due to its construction and there must have been at least several hundred of them made as most commercial printers have fairly large minimum quantities, however this is discounting the board's designer's personal friendship with the printer which allowed her to obtain a quantity far below the minimum as a favor. Our board has a four-sided leaf made of metallic gold plastic that has indentations of each side of the leaf for people's fingertips to rest, and a round viewfinder in the center.

Various sessions on our board have seen The Collective referring to the board as a Matty. At first we thought that this was just a cutesy version of the Mat in Mantic Message Mat.  At another point we were under the belief that Matty was the name of the entity who instructed the board's original designer on the layout of the board. I do not remember if this was folklore that my husband brought with him from before I came into his life, or if this was something that we were told together in a board session. It has been many years, and unfortunately I was not documenting these things at the time. But now we have pressed again for information, and we have settled that Matty is a general term for any such design on a physical object that is made for The Collective to work with us for some purpose. Any functional talking board is a Matty. I think you could even count it as a Matty when people use an upturned glass and a smooth table with letters on it for the same purpose.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

A two-person team is usually the best configuration (and typically the minimum number of persons needed) to properly work a talking board. Sure, it can be done with one person, but usually not on a round board (a solo flight might happen on a rectangular board), and usually the communication will not be as clear. By the way, this is just what I've been told by The Collective. If you have solo board experiences that worked out well for you, I am more than happy to hear about them. I have personally attempted to get movement out of our leaf and board by myself and nothing happens. Not a twitch. Other people jump on with me and the leaf usually starts right up like my reliable ancient toaster that's older than I am. Anywho, you two-person board team should consist (for maximum efficacy) of a Speaker and a Battery. The Speaker is the person who will do most of the talking: asking questions out loud of The Collective, spelling or calling out the letters or other text as the leaf indicates, and so on. This is usually the more extroverted of the two people, the more masculine energy. Note that I am using masculine in the archetypal sense, I am not literally referring to who is the most manly. Masculine energy projects, feminine absorbs. The Battery will be the person who acts as primarily a power source for the entity who is attempting to communicate. They can still talk and ask questions, but they are chiefly better at receiving information and being, well, a battery. They will usually have the more feminine, introverted energy. This masculine/feminine, Speaker/Battery duo gives the necessary balance for ease of two-way communication. A board may be used with two people of the same type (both Speakers or both Batteries) but the conversation tends to be less clear and more difficult. The leaf will move more slowly around the board, acting very stubborn. Words spelled out sometimes make less sense than normal. More embarrassing, if there is in fact an available Battery person in the room who is not using the board, the board may refuse to function unless that person joins in. This has happened many times to my husband, the Battery in our house. If you're not sure who might be suited for what role, a good starting point could be your Sun sign. Fire and Air signs tend to make better Speakers, Water and Earth signs tend to be more suited as batteries. Not a hard and fast rule, just an idea.

So talking boards, not so scary, right? Next time I'll get into what it's like to actually use the board and maybe try to cover some of the common fears and myths associated with the use of this tool.

Bathroom Routines

The bathroom is the great leveler.  All of us end up in there whether we be CEO or salesman.  Everyone showers at one point or another, brushes our teeth, and yes, once a day sits down on the throne and performs about the least regal act we can think of.  Just think!  The Prime Minister or President is no better than you, in that at some time in their life they have gotten halfway through good 'ol Movement No.2 of the Turd Symphony and realized that there is no toilet paper left, and sat there stymied.

And everyone eventually arrives at their own unique Bathroom Routines.  You may not know that you have these routines, but you will be made aware of them when you move in with somebody.  Because they will have different Bathroom Routines.  And should you have occasion to share bathroom time (for example as  husband and wife, or just a roommate with personal space issues) you will find yourself amused, bewildered, and even horrified by this other person's routines.  You will have internal monologues that you never imagined.  What the f&@k is that doing in there?!  Is that a used bandage??  And why are there goddammed dishes in the bathtub?!

When my husband and I moved in together, he pointed out some of my routines to me (some of them in a jesting manner, others accompanied much eye-rolling) and I will admit a few of them now in this porcelain confessional.

Q-Tipping

There was a Saturday Night Live sketch (it could have been MAD TV, I don't totally remember) about this dangerous new practice "the kids" were into, which basically equated with getting high the thrill one gets from cleaning their ears with a Q-Tip.  I remember seeing it and being the only one not laughing. They're right: that shit is addictive.  

I know on the package of Q-Tips it shows little cutesy illustrations of the swab being used to clean a keyboard (something the package designer has obviously never tried, because they would know that trying to do so is like trying to clean a cinder block wall with a rubber-handled mop), or removing the crud from around baby's eyes.  And then they have the repeated stern warnings not to stick the Q-Tips into your ears.  HAH!!  Let me tell ya, pal, I (and I suspect most people)are buying this packet of cushiony twigs to do nothing but stick them in our ears.  I might use a few for removing eye makeup, but that's about it.  Much like the "back massager" industry, the cotton swab manufacturers have built an entire empire on a product that is officially meant for any use except the one for which people are actually purchasing it. No one buys a box of Q-Tips so that they can do arts and crafts and then coyly, when no one is looking, decides to just "try out" cleaning an ear.  You buy that box, rip it open, and start rooting around with a tiny stick, millimeters from your ear drum.

I am completely obsessed with cleaning my ears.  I have to do it each and every morning, immediately after getting out of the shower, and sometimes a second time in the day, if I'm feeling particularly wax-laden.  If I go somewhere where I have to spend the night away from home, I make sure to take at least a dozen Q-Tips with me.  Just in case there is some sort of wax emergency.  And not just any tip will do: I only get the ones with the compressed paper shafts. The kind with the plastic shafts are too bendy and there is never enough cotton on the end so I end up scraping up the inside of my ear.  Not the ear drum, relax, people.  I would never go too far. I am a professional.

Rinsing the Razor

Many of us ritually scrape the excess fur off of our bodies for a variety of reasons: cultural conditioning, vanity, hygiene.  Sometimes simply so that we won't bristle our significant other.  No one wants to feel like their face is being grated off by a piece of 150 grit sandpaper every time they make out with their boyfriend.  And it's really disturbing when making out with your girlfriend.

I have two razors: an electric one that rarely gets used, and a 4-blade disposable one that is my go-to shaving implement.  It gets used in the shower.  I don't really go in for shaving cream or lotion. I know I should, I know it's better, but I'm cheap and it's just one more step in a shower that usually already is taking too long.  I just get in there and put blades to hair and be done with it.

Recently I was sharing bathroom time with my husband and during my shaving routine he started laughing at me.  Well no one wants to be laughed at while they're naked, so I snapped at him, "What's so funny?"

"You're not accomplishing anything by doing that," he chuckled.  He was poking fun at me because when I shave, at intervals I leave off the actual hair removal and run the razor through the water to flush out the excess stubble.  A clogged razor does me no good.  But since I had been facing away from the water, I was just thrusting the razor over my shoulder into what I thought was the stream from the showerhead.  According to my husband, I was merely waving it around in the air, attempting to clean it via magic.  I told him that my plan was to put the hair out of my sight and strenuously ignore it until it felt awkward and went away on its own.

They See Me Rollin, They Hatin'...

Apparently I use too much toilet paper.  Just ask my husband.  My level of toilet paper usage never crossed my mind until I began sharing a bathroom.  I remember him walking by the bathroom door at some point in our past and doing a double-take. "Whoa! Take it easy on the TP!" he admonished.

Take it easy?  Look man, there is no polite way to say this, but until they popularize bidets here in the States, I gotta get clean somehow.  And that somehow is with toilet paper.  As much as I need to get the job done.  I don't care if I have to unroll enough to stuff a pillow if that's what it takes to keep skid marks outta my underwear and me from doing the Walk of the Unclean Bunghole for the rest of the day.  Sorry, but it is what it is (and yes, I am aware that many people hate that expression, but you are reading a blog entry about potty cleanliness, so don't act like your standards are so high).  He has been on me ever since about me using more paper than he thinks I should.  Like there are regulations somewhere hidden away in the dusty offices of the Bureau of Disposable Tissues that he has consulted and is dutifully counting how many squares I pull off the roll.

I will admit that I have lived (and worked) in some places that have "finicky" toilets.  You know the ones.  You can only pee and put two squares of paper down there and THAT'S IT or the whole damn thing gets clogged.  I have promised myself that if I end up doing a bathroom remodel and I have to buy a new toilet, I am going to make sure that I get one that you could flush an entire houseplant down, pot and all, with one powerful whoosh.  Let's stop playing around with these pansy crappers that they seem to like to install just about everywhere nowadays.  Hint: it's not a "water-saver" toilet if I have to flush three times so that I don't hurt its delicate constitution.

A Little Help From My Friends

Now this last one is not a routine that I initiated, it's just something that happens as a bizarre side effect of me being in the loo.  If I go into the bathroom, within 90 seconds there will be a cat in there with me.  I know I could close the door, but I don't really mind them most of the time.  It's just weird if anyone else were to witness it.  

Sit down, start doing my business, and here comes one of the cats, strolling in like, "Hey!  Whatcha up to? You need a hand with that?"  Depending on which cat it is, they may either pace back and forth butting their head into my shins or try to climb into my lap.  Sometimes I allow this, but more often than not they try for the lap when I'm just trying to run in, pee real quick, and get outta there.  And they want to be on the lap for a long time. They hunker down like it's the coziest seat in the house, meanwhile my left leg is going to sleep. One of them likes to get into the bathtub and chase her own tail while she waits for me.  They're like bizarre, furry little bathroom attendants.  I keep waiting for the day when they start offering me towels and put a little dish out expecting me to tip them.  I don't know what they get out of it.  I think for the cats, all bathroom activity has to happen when we are together in the same room.  This probably explains why one of them always has to come take a dump right when I am in the middle of trying to clean the litter box.  

No matter how much attention they are getting from me, once they hear the toilet paper rolling it's like and air raid siren and they bail right the F outta there.  Not sure what they think is about to happen.  They're probably off to report to my husband that I'm using too much paper again.

How Did I Get Here and Why Are All These Dead People Talking to Me?

If you would have told me maybe 15 years ago that one day I would regularly be consulting with dead people and asking them for practical advice, I would have probably laughed and told you to stop trying to steal plots from Tim Burton movies and passing them off as real life. And yet here I am.  How the heck did I arrive at this place that seems at this point totally natural to me and yet highly suspect to lots of other people?

I wish I could tell you something exciting and mystical, like "It came to me in a dream!" or that I did a bunch of 'shrooms and communed with the cosmos.  But my life is much more boring than all of that.  In fact  I won't even eat the kind of mushrooms that come on a pizza, but let's not get distracted with my food issues right now.

I didn't wake up one day and decide to start communing with spirits (man, I hate that word, but I suppose I need to start out using language that makes sense more or less to other people).  It wasn't even on my radar. I was doing practical things like working and going to college and trying to pay the bills and even navigate a divorce.  Pro Tip, kids: maybe try not to get married at 18; we all don't know what we want or need for ourselves as much as we think we do, not that our family can tell us that and expect us to listen.

It was at the much older and wiser age of 19 (heh) that I started dating the man who would be the Right One for me, now my husband. His family, much to my delight, was weird.  And liked me.  More or less. You know how some people go all out decorating their house for Christmas, all Griswold style?  They did it for Halloween. They laughed at fart jokes. They were utterly inappropriate, and I fit into their quirky niche like I was meant to go there.

One of the novel things I experienced for the first time with Hubby and his family, which seemed rather inconsequential  at first, was the talking board. The Matty (name to be explained later).  So that we are all on the same page here, and everyone understands what I am talking about, I will say this word one time and avoid it hereafter, like one avoids a racial slur: this is a thing that many people would call a Ouija Board.  Bleh!  Patooie!  Really, that is a name that was used by a Parker Brothers game board, and it carries a stigma with it. You may have seen one. They're all over silly horror movies, catching on fire, letting in "Evil Spirits," etc.  You may have used one.  Maybe at a party.  People might have been drunk and asking stupid questions like, "Was I a princess in a past life??"  Let us be clear, the Ouija was a mass-produced novelty item, which existed for the purpose of making money.  I refer to it only to give some frame of reference, and I'm sure I will post in the future about what makes a good taking board versus a piece of crap.

Nevertheless, I saw my first board at my husband's parent's house. It was a round one, not square, like any I had ever seen before.  Because this was over 10 years ago, I started grilling my husband about how my first board experiences went, because to tell you the truth, I don't remember much. Turns out neither does he.  Does memory loss start at 30?  Sigh.  

I think I remember him first mentioning that his family had this "board" that they got from his grandmother.  A board that you could ask things.  Questions.  And much like many people, because he didn't say "Ouija" board (because it's not), I didn't really know what he was talking about at first, before I laid eyes on the thing.  I had a mental picture of literally a board.  Like a piece of wood that you could go buy at a lumber yard.  I know: I'm dumb.  I finally got the idea when he brought it out.  Oh a board. Got it.

The first time I went on the board, I think I was with my husband and his mom. I don't remember what we talked about. I remember having no real opinion either way going into it. I wasn't gung-ho, ready to talk to some ghosts, have a séance and summon up Elvis or Abe Lincoln or anything.  I wasn't a naysayer, either.  I was just curious.  Alright, let's see how this works. Let's see what this thing is.

Like many people, I am a slow boat to turn.  I am not generally someone who turns over new leaves overnight, kicks habits cold turkey, or busts down doors in life.  Ask anyone who has tried to get me to stop inserting the word "like" into my speech.  SoCal habits die hard.  And this board thing was no different.  As I began to use the board with my husband, I had questions.  Many, many questions.  Things had to be proven to me. I had to see evidence in my life.  I was not just taking the word of the Unseen, on good faith, no questions asked.  I'm very practical that way.  Show me.  Prove it.

And you know what? They did.  And do. Again and again.  Sometimes in so blatant a manner that I want to burst out laughing, or grab the phone and call hubby and say, "Dude!  You will not believe what just happened!"  Yes, I also say "dude" a lot.  Nobody's perfect.

A decade later, I find myself using the board (and sometimes other means) to talk to dead people and get their advice and listen to their stories, and this is integrated into my life with about the same normalcy as doing laundry, going to the movies, or playing with my cats.  It seems very mundane and even practical to me, and sometimes I forget that everyone doesn't do this and that it seems bizarre and even crazy to many people.

So this will be my blog. I wanted to archive somewhere my experiences of this sort and tell this story. And  for balance (because I am neurotic about making symmetrical, and because I wanted to show that people like me exist and we do not all dress like gypsy fortune tellers from the movies and talk in fruity prose) I am going to post about my regular life, too.  It's pretty normal, more or less.  I go to work.  I argue with Hubby about what to make for dinner.  I have road rage.  Sometimes I sleep with one arm at a funny angle and I wake up at two in the morning needing to pee and almost fall on my ass when I try to grab the door knob to the bathroom and discover that my arm is numb. You know, normal people stuff.  I just occasionally ask someone who used to be alive if next month is a good time to start a blog. And they say yes, so I guess I'll get on it.