Finding My Guide

    Years ago I decided to see if I could find out who my Guide was during meditation.  While I meditate I visualize my garden, the place I go during meditation to find peace.  The garden I see in my minds eye is in the woods away from everything.  There is a path that leads to a gazebo which has a cement bench in the middle of it.  It is surrounded by a white fence and flowers of all types.  A very pretty and peaceful place to me. 

    Once there I asked my Higher Self.  Who is my Guide?  Who is it that gives me the information I need when reading for others?  Slowly I began to see a white mist coming toward me out of the woods.  I began feeling overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed in a good way, the way I felt just after delivering my son (you mothers will understand that).  I actually began to cry tears of joy.  Upon composing myself I asked “Is there a name I can call you?”  Very softly I heard a voice say “Gabriel.” or so I thought.  I was unsure I heard the name correctly so I asked the voice to repeat their name.  “Gabriel.” the voice spoke softly.

    The next evening I decide I would ask again during my evening meditation.  I wanted to hear it again because the voice had sounded kind of feminine and I was pretty sure an Arch Angel couldn’t be my Guide.  So once again to my garden I went asking, “Are you there?”.  Again the mist appeared out of the woods in front of me as I knelt before the bench in the gazebo.  Then I heard a female declare, “I am here.  My name is Gabrielle.” in a much clearer voice this time.  “Oh, GABRIELLE!  ... Can I call you Gabby?” I asked.  A muffled laugh and then a resounding, “YES!”.  Then I asked “Do I have others with me?” and Gabby said “Many.”  I then looked around the perimeter of my garden and saw many others just outside the fence line.  Feeling overwhelmed again, I decided to wait for another day to try and find out who they were.

    Since then I have found out several of the other Guides names, there are young and old, male and female.  They seem to each have a job to do with me in my life.  I sometimes wonder if they ever start the day thinking, “Crap, another work day!”

Our Pets Have Spirits Too!

    I’ve always been an animal lover.  Since the time I was a child I’ve been fascinated with all sorts of animals.  I blame it on Mom because she would bring home all sorts of strays.  Cats, dogs, birds, hamsters and even critters we caught in the backyard (snakes, frogs, chipmunks, etc.).  I actually thought about being a Vet as a career but decided I couldn’t stand to see animals in pain.  Over the years I have had MANY different pets.

    Anyone who thinks that animals don’t meet us on the other side has never really experienced their spirit.  Many of my pets have come to visit me.  I have felt them and even seen a glimpse of them around the house on occasion.  I have also seen other peoples pets with them during readings, there IS a connection with our beloved pets.

    One time I lost a Siamese cat.  He got very ill and I had to make the decision to put him down.  I had his company for only eight years and loved him dearly.  To this day I can feel his presence, mostly when I’m in the bathroom of all places.  I can feel him rubbing against my legs as he did in life.

    Then there was the DREAM DOG.  I call her that because I dreamed of her before she was born, actually, even before I had an inkling that I would own her.

    The dream was of me at my house in the country.  I could see the front door was open and looking through the screen door you could tell it was Spring.  There were four dogs jumping at the door looking outside.  “Four dogs,” I thought in the dream, “there’s Cleo, Max and Roxie but who’s the little blonde dog?”  Then I heard a voice in the dream call her Sandy.

    A couple of months later a friend of mine who had Miniature Wirehaired Dachshunds called me.  She began by saying her dog was going to have puppies in a couple of months.  After they came she asked me if I would like to co-own one of the females with her.  Well that was a no brainer, of coarse I would love to add a Wirehaired Dachshund to the family.  So I told her I would only if I could name it after her and she was fine with that, “Sandy, it is.” she said.  Not long after that, in the Spring, I would see my dream come true.

    About four years ago, I had to put my beloved Cleo down.  A Yorkie I had for fifteen years.  It broke my heart, but her quality of life was just not there anymore.  About a year later she came to me while I was in bed.  I had two other dogs at the time and they were sleeping with me.  I was awakened by footsteps on the bed.  I looked to see if one of my babies were getting up, but no, they were both sound asleep.  I lay there and could feel and see movement on the comforter.  Then I heard a ‘thud’ as if something had jumped down off the bed and the patter of footsteps leaving the room.  I KNOW IT WAS CLEO.

    These things are just a sampling of how our pets, like our children, pick us.  For whatever the reason, their little souls are with us AFTER and even BEFORE their existence.

Ruby

    Many years ago I was sitting around the house with nothing to do (at least nothing I wanted to do) so I decided to try psychometry on myself.  I didn’t know if that was even possible, but what the heck.

    I took off my favorite gold necklace and laid it on the table before me.  I said my little prayer of protection and asked my higher self to show me what would happen in my future.

    I took three deep cleansing breaths and picked up my necklace.  It was hard to keep my mind blank so I decided to do what I was taught.  Mom, Jeane and I took these classes (we actually helped start them) and we were taught to visualize a blank black board so we had only one thing on our minds.  If our mind started to wander we were told to erase the board and start again.  So this is what I did.  It took several minutes but finally a picture, vague at first, came onto the board.  As I looked in my minds eye I saw a window.  “Something’s in front of that window.” I thought.  Wondering what it was I tried to zoom in.  As I did there seemed to be a large bird cage in front of the window.  Zooming in closer I saw a parrot in the cage.  All I could tell is that it was a parrot but it was in the shadows so the bird itself was not clear.  “Hmmm...wonder what that’s all about?  Nobody I know has a parrot.” I thought.

    I wrote all the things I saw down with notations of how I felt about the visions.  I tucked the notes away and figured that I may understand later on.  There were many other things I saw in that vision I won’t talk about right now, hopefully that’s another story.

    About five years later I was out shopping.  Walking down the street I saw a pet store that only had birds.  “Birds?  Wow I wonder if they carry Canaries.” I thought.  I bred Red Factor Canaries at that time so I knew a little something about birds.  I decided to go in and just enjoy the beautiful birds.  I met the owner and she was very informative about the birds she had.  After talking awhile I noticed an exceptionally beautiful parrot and she told me it was a female Eclectus.  “These parrots are from the islands off the coast of Australia and I breed them.” she informed me.  The bird was bright red with iridescent royal blue wings a purple chest and bright yellow tail feathers.

    I told her about my Canaries and she said she had been wanting some Red Factors (I had 100 at the time).  We worked out a deal.  She took all my Canaries and a small amount of cash for a two week old female Eclectus.

    I had to wait another two weeks before she would let me take her home.  It was sooooo ugly.  No feathers and a big gullet.  I had to hand feed her for months before she could eat on her own.  Her breeder told me that hand feeding is the best way to bond with a parrot.  I named her Ruby for the obvious reason.

    Ruby quickly learned to talk and thankfully is not a noisy parrot as are so many.  She only seems to talk a lot around six in the evening (or when I’m on the phone) and hardly ever screams (unless she’s frightened).

    Anyway, I’ve had her for fifteen years or so and she has been a good companion.  I hadn’t thought of that reading I did for myself in years, but gazing at her in front of the window the other day it all came back.  “Oh my God!  This is exactly what I saw!” I thought “I can’t wait for the other wonderful visions I had that day, all those years ago, to come to pass too!”

Dreams, Memories or Messages?

    I could (and probably will) tell you story after story about my dreams.  Early in life I learned to pay attention to them because they DO mean something.

    When I was about eight years old I awoke from a bad dream (or so I thought).  “Mommy, Mommy!” I screamed crying from bed.  Mom came into the room and sat at the edge of my bed “What’s wrong honey?” Mom asked.  “I had a scary dream.” I replied.  Mom then hugged me and said “Tell me about it.”

    “I was very tiny and walking down a long dark hallway.  I was holding some ones hand, a very big person.  We came to a room and stood in the doorway.  There was a big bed I had to look up to see who was in it.  There was a light behind the bed and a window.  The room smelled funny.  There was an old lady with long white hair laying in it.  When we entered the room the old lady tried to touch me.  I think she was dead!” I told my Mother.  Mom just smiled and said, “You’re just remembering.”

    “Remembering what?” I asked her and she began to tell me a story which I will never forget.  “When you were around two years old your Great Grandmother got sick.  The doctors said she had something called Alzheimer’s and that because of her forgetfulness we had to put her in a home.” Mom began, “Your Great Grandma loved you very much, but she started losing memories of you and all of us.  She became very scared of everyone and we were afraid she would hurt herself or someone else, so we thought this would be the best for her.” Mom continued, “What you’re remembering is something that really happened to you when you were only two.  I took you to see your Great Grandma at that home.  We had to walk down a long hallway to her room, it was kinda dark and it did smell of cleansers and medicines.  When we got to the room we stood at the door and she DID reach out to you just before she passed away.  I wondered if you remembered seeing her.  I think she’s reaching out to you again, this time in your dreams.  She just wants to let you know she loves you.”  

    Mom always had a way to console me and make me feel better about the things that scared me.  The scary dream was not so scary anymore.  It was a message to me from Great Grandma that she saw me then and sees me now!

Aliens or Angels?

    One night my son, then 10 years old, came into my bedroom and woke me.  He was scared and said, “Mom, there’s something outside.  I keep seeing a blue light floating around outside my bedroom window.”  I got up and took him back to his bed.  We both looked out the window.  Nothing.  We watched for a short while but saw nothing more.  “Well honey, it’s gone now.  We’re safe.  You can go to sleep now.” I told him as I tucked him in “It may have been someone down at the creek.”.

    A few months later I helped get him ready for school then, as usual, I laid back down for a few minutes before I had to get ready.  He would always wait inside the house until he heard the bus coming and I would get up after I heard him go out the door.  On this day however, I didn’t hear the door, I heard him crying.  He hardly ever cried unless he was hurt!  I jumped up and ran into the living room where I found him standing in front of the door crying, “Something’s outside, mom.” “What’s outside?” I asked.  “I don’t know, but it scares me.” he said.  With that I made him go to his room and I looked out the window.  Not seeing anything, I opened the door and stepped out to see.  Nothing.  I then went back and consoled him until the bus came and we walked out to it together.  I told him we would say a prayer over the house and yard after school to keep anything scary away from us.  That seemed to do the trick.  That evening we did a prayer smudging together, we went throughout the house and then outside all around the house.  This made us both feel safe.

    All’s calm on the home front for several weeks.  Then one weekend, after picking James up from his dad’s house, we’re on our way home and we see something hovering over the car as we’re driving.  I slowed down to five or ten miles per hour and we’re both leaning forward looking up at this thing in the sky over the car.  “What the heck is that?  Is it a plane?” I asked.  It was so low and so huge.  It was completely silent, big and black and triangular in shape.  “I’m pulling over.” I told James “You stay in the car.”  I got out and it was gone...we both wondered if it was a Stealth Bomber or Alien Spacecraft.  We wouldn’t both have seen the same thing if it hadn’t been there.  The next morning the newspaper had an article about a reported unidentified object being seen over the city we lived!

    Now I’m not one to deny that other things exist, but I’m not sure I want to have a face to face either.  So we both just forgot about the incident and went about our daily lives.

    Several more weeks go by and I’m at home alone.  James was at his fathers house for the weekend.  I have settled in for a good nights rest and just finished my evening meditation.  Suddenly I got a creepy feeling that something was watching me.  I asked for protection.  I then noticed a BLUE LIGHT through the blinds just outside my bedroom.  It was as if something was pacing back and forth in front of my window.  Now I’m really scared.  “Please, Lord God, protect me and keep me safe.” I prayed “If these are Your Angels I thank You.  But, if they are Aliens please send them away!”  They lights went out and there were never any more incidents like these.  THANK THE LORD!

Uninvited House Guests

    When I lived out in the country, years ago, there were many strange occurrences at my home.  One of which I will relay to you now.  Remember I was a single mother living with just my son and our pets.

    My son was around 16 at the time so he could drive.  On this particular occasion my son was spending the weekend with his father in town.  (These things always seem to happen when you’re alone.)

    Anyway, it was a nice evening in the summer.  I had the doors open early in the evening to enjoy the fresh night air.  Preparing for bed I went around the house and closed all the doors and windows, checking to make sure they were all locked up tight for the evening and then went to bed.

    I woke up around two in the morning, because I thought I heard the television or a radio on really low.  I listened quietly for a few minutes before I got up to check.  Thinking maybe my son had come home for some reason I checked his room first.  No one was there and nothing in the house was on.  I went back to bed.

    A few minutes later I woke again to hear the low sounds of people talking.  Was it the radio, I wondered, knowing I had just checked and nothing had been on.  I laid back down and about a half hour later I heard the front door open and close.  “James?” I asked.  No answer, I listened but heard nothing.  Now I was beginning to get scared.  What the heck is going on tonight?    The low mumblings continued and I finally got the nerve to get up and check it out.  I picked up my ball bat (I kept beside the bed) and quietly got up to check out what was going on.  The mumbling continued as I snuck around the corner from my bedroom to the living room.  To my amazement the whole living room was filled with a mist, it looked like a heavy fog.  Immediately the mumbling stopped, I interrupted something!  The mist, which had been swirling when I entered the room stopped and started to dissipate.  I flipped on the lights...NOTHING.  I checked the front door...LOCKED TIGHT.  What the heck is going on?  

    I then remembered something mom used to tell me.  She believed our Angels/Guides will periodically check up on us and if we were quiet we might just hear or see them but that they would try not to be seen.  I caught them in the act!

    “I don’t mind if you have a party in my living room, but could you at least INVITE ME NEXT TIME?” I said to the empty room.

Corner Grocery Store

    My family lived in a small city in Ohio until I was eleven.  At that time my Dad thought it would be a good idea to buy a grocery store in a neighboring town.  He wanted to be his own boss and I understood that, but a grocery store?  As it turned out it was quite an adventure for our family.

    Please remember that this was the early 60’s and quite an abrupt shift for us.  It was scary to me at first, just moving to a new area and having to make new friends.  This was an overload to a girl who was kind of introverted.

    Suddenly everyone knew our family.  Because we owned a business people thought we were rich and my introversion translated to my being a snob to the neighborhood kids.  The problem for me was, I didn’t realize then, I was very intuitive.  I felt how others thought about our family, outsiders.  That is hard for all children, but especially hard for extremely intuitive kids.

    Thankfully Mom was an outgoing and likeable lady.  Later on the kids in the neighborhood would literally call her “Lady”.  Dad on the other hand was a very stern, loud, and opinionated man, his moniker became “The Boss”.  Because Mom was so friendly and good with kids our store quickly became the “hang-out”.  That was good and bad, good because it helped me and my siblings begin to fit in.  Bad because no one ever had to call or ask to come over they could just come and hang out and eventually we’d be around. 

    Living in a grocery store is a very interesting way to grow up.  We had to learn how to wait on customers, how to handle money and make change.  We also learned how to do inventory and stock.  Our store had a small meat counter where we cut lunch meats for  people and had other things like pork chops, hamburger and the like.  Howard, the butcher, came as an employee with the store.  We also had a “pop shed” that Grandpa built for us, where we kept all the returned pop bottles.  It was an average corner grocery store and looking back an unusual type of childhood.  We learned a lot and most of it was fun but some of it was kinda scary.

    The building itself had been around for many years.  There was a coal shoot to the basement where coal was stored to heat the building in the old days.  All the heat came through the old fashioned iron radiators.  We all got a burn or two from those through the years.

    Howard Hoover, the butcher, taught mom and dad how to butcher meats and he was quite the character.  He was only around the first couple of years we owned the store before he passed.  Even though he was not there physically after that he did make his presence known to us several times through the years.  A few weeks after his demise, my father was watching TV in our upstairs apartment.  He reached for his glasses case on the coffee table only to find that the glasses belonged to Howard!  How in the world did those glasses turn up in our living room?  Mom called Howard’s widow and was told that those glasses couldn’t be his, he was buried with his only pair of glasses.  Mom insisted, “They have his name inside the case!”.  Mrs. Hoover decided to come over and get them just the same.  When she saw the case she broke down in tears, “These ARE his, I recognized his handwriting!”.  That was only one of the many times he presented himself to our family.

    I’m not sure what was happening in that building or why, but all kinds of unexplainable stuff seemed to keep happening there.  The toilet would occasionally flush when there was no one in the bathroom.  The chandelier in the living room would swing around when there was no wind or anyone near it.  The rocking chair would rock by itself.  The piano would play a few notes of ‘A Time for Us’ now and then with no one at the keyboard.  The lights would turn on and off without any physical help.  Although those things may sound scary there were many other things much more ominous that would happen over the years.

    My brother had more than a few scares while doing his daily chores.  He mopped the store at night after closing and would only screw in the light on the meat scales for light so as not to have the store appear to be open.  One night while mopping the light went out.  He thought he may not have screwed the light in tightly enough, so he re-screwed the light in.  It went out again, now he was getting ticked off.  He lit the light once more, the light went out again.  This time when he went to re-do the light to his surprise the bulb was gone, it was laying beside the scales!

    Another time he was doing his nightly chores around 2 AM.  This time a cereal box fell off the shelf onto his head.  He replaced it thinking he had bumped the shelf.  Then two boxes fell off onto his head.  Now he’s getting aggravated, he put them back cussing the boxes.  At that, it was as if someone ran their hand along behind the row of cereal boxes and they all fell!  Needless to say he ran out of the store without finishing the job.

    We all had chores to do because mom had to always work the store and dad worked another job to help support a family of six.  One of Jeane’s jobs was to do the dusting and vacuuming upstairs.  While doing the dusting on one occasion she had a very upsetting experience.  

    To understand why this was upsetting you have to know the layout of the upstairs apartment.  There was only one way upstairs and at the top of the stairs you would see the living room just past a short hallway that led to the bathroom.  Now and then mom would allow salesmen to use our bathroom so we really didn’t pay attention to strangers coming upstairs once in awhile.

    So anyway, Jeane is dusting, her back to the stairway.  When suddenly a man came out of our brothers bedroom directly in front of her.  He said “Hello.” and reached his hand out to her.  Startled, she wondered how he got past her in the first place.  She ran downstairs and asked mom, “Who is the man upstairs?”.  Mom said, “There’s no man upstairs, Jeane.”.  Mom sent one of the neighborhood boys back upstairs with Jeane to check on this and of course there was no one.  Jeane gave a very complete description of what she had seen but no one could ever explain who he was, where he came from, or went to!

    Occasionally I would hear or see things I couldn’t identify.  One time I had a girlfriend over and we were sitting around having a girl talk.  Suddenly I noticed a cloud forming above her head.  It seamed to be swirling over her and getting larger with sparkling lights in it.  I told her softly, “Look up.”  When she did it must have scared her pretty badly because she jumped up and ran out of the house.  She and I remained friends but she would never come back to the store.

    You must remember that mom, my sister Jeane and I were very intuitive.  My brother and youngest sister were also, although they weren’t as actively interested in the metaphysical as we were.  Because of our activities, I believe, we energized the building.  Mom especially liked things on the scary side and sometimes played with things that would have been better off left alone.

    Once mom decided to ‘cast a spell’ of prosperity for our business.  She concocted a mixture and mopped the store with it.  Later that day she and Jeane were sitting in the store alone talking, when the bells on the front door rang.  In came a many people in single file.  Young and old, tall and short, they just kept coming.  They kept filing in until the whole store was filled.  They were all making eye contact with mom and Jeane but no one spoke.  They milled around for a few seconds and then just as quickly as they came they turned and filed out of the store.  Both Jeane and mom were speechless.  When all of the people had gone Jeane asked mom, “Did you see that?” and mom replied, “Yea, what the Hell was that all about?”.  They both ran out the front door to see where the people had gone but there was no one in sight.  They told me if they hadn’t been together and both experienced this, they would not have believed it.  They have no explanation for it, just one more weird experience at Dungan’s Grocery Store!

There are many other stories about our grocery store and I may in the future write more.