Lights in the Night

My sister Toni who was very fond of Drew and misses him a lot, came with her friend Beth to visit me for five days. I put them both in downstairs bedrooms separated by a smaller room I call "The Children's Room". 

I call it that because it's the room that houses all their baby and  childhood photographs, pictures they've drawn over the years,  trophies that remind them of long forgotten triumphs on the playing fields and academic stages of their lives and a closet full of old clothes and a few toys I can't part with yet. Everything here is a reminder of the time these children were on loan to us. A time that in the scheme of things was much too short. 
Especially in Drew's case.

But he's not far away, it seems. On the first morning of my sister's stay, she arrived at the top of the stairs in her sweats looking for a cup of coffee. Her hair was askew (very) her face was pink and she was using her hands a lot as she spoke. 

"Last night, I said goodnight to Beth, walked through the Children's Room, turned off the lamp in there, went into my room and got into bed." She flung her hair back from her face. "I read for a while and was just about to turn my lamp off and go to sleep when I looked over tho the half open door of the kids room - and the light was on." 

"You made a mistake?" I asked. Although I was sure that she hadn't.

"No. I distinctly remember turning the light off because I had to hunt for the switch. I turned it off! Sister, My Sister. Off!"

"Okay." Said I.

"So I went back in and turned it off again. and went back to bed."


I waited.

"Half an hour later when I was almost asleep, I cracked my eyes open and there's Beth's standing beside my bed saying she thought I'd turned the light off in the Children's Room... I nodded and Beth said, "Well it's back on again!"  It's Drew, isn't it?" Toni said.


Of course it's Drew. "He came to play," I smiled.


It happened the following night too. But this time Toni decided to visit. "So I sat on the the bed in there and chatted, I asked how he was, told him how I was - said I liked being here - you know..."
She stopped for a moment. "And then I told him how glad I was he came."

***

 
 The same thing happens to the lights in the hotel in Colorado where Drew used to work.  And why wouldn't they? He continues to be the light in our lives he always was on earth.
 

If you're about my age, you've discovered the true value of friends.
The older I get the more valuable they get. Perhaps it's because at some point we all become each others eyes, noses and are able to borrow brains when ours crash.
My brain was headed for the cliff recently when I discovered that having found my way around simple emailing and figured out a blog site (with the help of friends) and even worked my way through a passable website, (friends again) I got on to A Shaft of Light -my blog- one morning, only to find that overnight everything had gone to hell!
Blogger was on its high horse saying it no longer 'supported' my browser. Its very hurtful to hear, "You are not my friend anymore"!!  Two days after this shocking revelation, brain spinning out of control, with no friends at "Blogger" I discovered, with the help of a friend what a "Browser " is. Good start. Step 1. Steps 2, 3, and 4 nearly sent me to a "home for the bewildered". Bewildered wasn't the word, actually! I was a sleepless, anxiety-ridden, blithering mess. Until! Trumpet fanfare - friends came to the rescue. 
They lent me their brains, gave me suggestions, interpreted the language and shone a light down the dark tunnel of computerdom.
And together we rode off into enlightenment singing campfire songs with a brand new best friend browser named Fire fox. What a fox! 
Thank you all for your help - when this brain of mine gets over this latest assault - you may borrow it. You may use it for whatever you think it's good for. It 'supports' you because you and it are friends. And what good are friends if you can't use them?
We're valuable.
 

Life Is Forever

It's Resurrection Day in the Christian tradition. It's a good tradition in my opinion, as it is a day of light, lilies and Life Everlasting. Whatever else I don't like about any organized religion, this is one tradition that has its roots in the fundamentals of a belief in the afterlife. That's something I can believe in and something I can actually attest to. And it's also the theme of my non-fiction book "By Morning's Light" which is a first-hand account of soul survival following the death of my son, Drew.

When I think about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, when I hear that the women of Galilee took the annointing oils to the tomb on Sunday morning only to find that he wasn't there - the rock that enclosed the tomb had been set aside and it was empty -  I can believe that. And then they tell us that two men, surrounded by dazzling light, appeared saying, "Why do you look for him here? Don't you remember he told you that day in Galilee that on the third day he would rise from the grave? Don't you know - he isn't here, he is alive." Duh!

So the women rushed back to town to tell everyone but of course no one believed them. But I do. Then they tell us that he appeared alongside two men on the road to Emmaus who were talking about the terrible happenings of the week before - but they didn't recognize him - Couldn't believe thier eyes, probably - until he sat down with them, broke bread in the biblical fashion  - and they knew who he was - but then he vanished. He appeared numerous other times according to the bible, and although the townspeople and the apostles knew him to be dead, when he said to them, "Why are you afraid? Can't you see it is I, Jesus. I'm alive!" They remembered what he had told him and believed.

So do I. I too went to the hospital the day after Drew died. I knew he wasn't there - not in the bed I'd left him in. And then five days later - not three - he appeared to me in one of those visions when I was least expecting him. Vibrant, whole, living breathing Drew. And I absolutely knew it was to tell me that he lives.

I saw my mother in a dream months after she died, standing in front of me - living and breathing - and I remember gasping in that dream and saying "They told me you were dead!" And she replied, "Ginny - the dead can't speak." And she was gone.

So yes, I believe that Jesus died and came back to show his family and friends that he was alive. Whatever else they've distorted and messed with in the Holy Books of the world religions - this, I know, is true.

I hope you have a lovely spring day. Enjoy the flowers, the kids, the bunnies (if anyone was so ill-advised as to give you a matched pair watch out...) and especially the chocolate! Goes well with a good cabernet or with anything, actually. Chocolate rules.
Happy Easter.  

Update

I'm finally getting the hang of setting up the website. We're not there yet but if I can keep my wits together for another day I may have it up and running. No garrantees though because this business is full of pot holes.

Here's the deal. Just when I thought I had everything under control last week, Headings looking good, photos fine, blurb on the book okay, cover page gorgeous, also contact info and blog links etc... I sent up a cheer and a "thank you" to whoever may be listening and went to bed. Happy as a clam was I. Thrilled with my expertise! High Fiving the cat and planning to teach all my "illiterate" friends how to set up websites of their own.

That was then ...  When I woke up the next morning, I tripped lightly, all aglow, into my study and sat down to launch the site. Tap, tap, type in all my ID info and sit there still glowing expectantly, waiting for the machine to wake up. It did. And the fist message it sent back was, "Who are you?" What?

A week later  after numerous one-way conversations with the website I was working with and getting NOWHERE mainly because none of them appeared to be able to access the original info I'd set up my site with. (Name, URL, domain name etc...) and getting thoroughly P.O'd with their lack of help, illiteracy etc... it dawned on me that I might be the screw-up. Turned out I was. So after I tried every combo of my ID I could think of, I finally hit on the right one. And the machine said "Hello Ginny Brock!" How nice to see you too - you wing nut piece of ... never mind.

At the moment, an uneasy detente exists between me and my Dell. And I just need it to last for a little while longer.Then I'm Done!

In the meantime, I've been writing a couple of fore-runner articles for By Morning's Light. One of them will appear in Llewellyn's Journal shortly before publication - I believe.

The roses, by the way are still alive. One of them is beginning to turn brown nearly two months after I got them, and has lost two petals this week. The others are still pink. And that warms my heart.

See you soon.

   

Roses

There's something fascinating going on in my bedroom. Not that - I'm a respectable widow lady, remember :)
Two months ago a very nice man in my life brought me roses on Valentine's Day. I never get tired of roses, even the force-fed, scentless variety we get in winter. I'll take them all. This was an especially lovely and large bouquet of pale pink roses so I divided them up putting them in different vases in the living room, in the dining room and in my bedroom.
They looked wonderful, really softening and lightening a room up in winter. I tried to keep them going as long as I could by snipping the stems off every so often so they could drink better - at least I think that's what they're doing. 
In about ten days their petals were dropping like large pink snow flakes and a day or so later I took them out of their vases, kissed them goodbye and sent them to the compost pile. All except for the roses in my bedroom.
This vase of roses was placed beside my son's picture on my dressing table. Along with a silver heart he gave me once and a heart-shaped stone I found on the edge of the Eagle River outside the apartment he lived in in Colorado - on the day I scattered a handfull of his ashes into the rapids there. These roses are still pink, still alive and have dropped none of their petals - six weeks or so after the others all died. This happens all the time. My house always has fresh flowers in it and there is always a vase of flowers beside Drew's picture. And they alway outlive the others by months. 
I've taken the light factor, the temperature differences between rooms and everything else I can think of into consideration, and I can come up with no earthly reason why they always outlive the others.
Thank you, sweet Drew.
 

'Tis the Season

Hi Everyone,
I've missed you and the blog which has taken a back seat  lately (as some of my BFFs have) for the reason that I'm working day and night with pre-publishing articles and blogs for Llewellyn's various sites, and giving "By Morning's Light" a last once-over before it goes into print in about two weeks time. 
My house is screaming for attention and I fear it could be put on the "Condemned - Keep OUT" list if there 're any health inspectors roaming my neighborhood. A layer of dust has settled in  and so have a contingent of Stink Bugs leaving obnoxious little foot prints and poop splats on my wood floors. There are also a few of their dead comrades lying toes up here and there where I've gotten up from the computer, grabbed my fly swatter and "Offed" them en passent. I thought that would hold their numbers down at least until the next time I get up from the computer. But I swear the little crappers - like pine trees in fear of extinction - started producing multiple loads of baby bugs. So this morning I went after them and the dust in earnest. We'll see how that works.
I have no sympathy for them. I had a friend once who whenever she swatted a bug of any kind would roll her eyes to Heaven and say, "Go to Jesus." I can't dig up that sort of guilt at all I'm afraid, but for years she added a few colorful strokes to the painting of My Life. She went to Heaven herself not long ago, and I'm sure she's with Jesus - probably surrounded by a jillion thankful little bugs. For me, I hope there's a Bug Heaven somewhere and I hope it's a long way from mine.
Back to the computer!
Hang in there everyone, you never know what's coming next. I hope it's sometthing GREAT! 

  

Curiouser and Curiouser

The strangest thing is happening.

While I'm avidly following Llewellyn's publishing process through it's release of my book "By Morning's Light," in June, I've been writing the next book and something very peculiar is happening.

This book (no title yet) is about reincarnation. It isn't a sequel to "Morning's Light". This book was created  ostensibly as a novel. The characters and the events are all make believe. I've never met the people or their dramas - that I know of -  although they could be compilations of a lot of people and events I may have known. Who knows? It has two themes. One is a love story, Ahhhhh ... the second theme throws a flood light on the possibility of past lives and how they intertwine with the present. Both themes fill bookcases in most bookstores and I know you're familiar with what I'm talking about.

My book is set in two different milleniae on two different continents - one ancient and one modern. A lot of research has gone into the ancient place because I've never been there even in modern times, and because middle school history skipped a heck of the a lot of the really interesting stuff and the stuff they taught wasn't worth reading when I was thirteen.

The strange thing is that when I pick an event and a place to stage it in, I begin to write it and later discover that I've placed the event in the exact spot where such an event took place eons ago! It happens over and over. While I'm creating, I'm picturing and describing an area that I can later pinpoint on maps, ancient and modern. I've picked it out of my imagination, I think - but then the research confirms what I seemed to know. Right down to the tree that grows by the front door! You'll see.  :) I seem to know exactly where I am.

So, am I "creating" while "imagining" the story? Or am I "channelling" it or remembering a past life?   

Curiouser and curiouser! I'll keep you posted.

Figuring Out the Energy Crisis

Here's something else I've been thinking about concerning this energetic body of ours.While acknowledging that this body human is far more than a set of arms and legs, one head (if you're lucky) and a torso with all the necessary inside parts to keep things running smoothly, I have often been stunned at the way the ethereal or energetic body can influence all of its physical components.
Take a bout of depression for example. As you know, this can really throw a wrench into the works. Depression happens to me when I'm emotionally running on empty.(I can't discuss the really serious and heartbreaking condition of clinical depression because I'm no doctor.) I'm thinking about  the occasional blues when I'm feeling bummed out.
I don't feel like eating, don't want to talk to anyone, don't want to go anywhere or see anyone. Just leave me alone. Bug off! Take your jollies and flush 'em!
My thoughts and emotions have done this. And to make matters worse prehaps they've even teamed up with physical exhaustion. Everything interacts. Now my eyes are leaking. My lungs are drawing in this bad energy and exhaling deep sighs. All I want to do is sleep. Well you can if you like. But have some chocolate first. Chocolate perks everything up.
And then there is the good stuff. You've won the lottery! Maybe you've won a contract you've worked your patootie off to get - your ship's come in! You've fallen in love. OMG You're on top of the world - you want to shout it from the roof tops. You want to tell everyone the good news and then you discover that you love everyone around you. OMG Your emotions have done this. Isn't it great? You're bung full of energy and you can take on the world if you have to.
The side effect of both these extremes is that which ever energy you're holding effects those around you. Doesn't it. Notice how your blues can throw a whole household into a funk. And your joy can lift the world. Suddenly everyone around you is smiling.
The other thing is that the blues create toxicity within our human selves while happiness releases endorphins that produce multi molecules of well- being. I want some of that. You can take the other away waiter, it's CORKED!  Unfortunately we can't always order up what we want.
What I know though, is this: inner balance can be achieved by periods of inner silence which rests my mind and body and allows me to breathe in all the goodness that exists around me. I reject the negativity, I don't allow it into this special retreat of mine. And I especially love Three Musketeers bars.
Try it. Clear you mind, breathe deeply and just BE. Just be with you. Be your own best friend - and eat more choclit.        
Cheers everyone!

Our Energy Fields

     As I mentioned in the last post, the Aura is only a partof the Energy Field that surrounds each of us. 
     Sometimes known as the Ephemeral Body the energy field is a tangible entity that exists around our physical bodies sometimes even conforming to the shape of our bodies. It is a "substance" sometimes referred to in Digital or Kirlian photograhy as "ectoplasm" and it is visible not only to camera lenses but to the naked eye as well. 
     You can actually see this energy. And you can feel it.
     The energy field comes from within us. It carries within its essense, our thoughts, our moods, our general health, the essentials of who we are.
      Mind readers so called, are actually reading the energy field. Ever look your eight year old in the eye and tell him/her "Don't lie to me. You know I can tell you're lying!"? Of course there's a lot of body language involved in the the not-so-efficient liar - like not meeting your eyes, squirming etc. and that helps. But in a practiced fibber it gets harder. So you don't try to look for the outward signs, instead, you pick up what you feel around the person. Instinct, inner voice, knowingness - "I just had a feeling..." - rely on it. It's probably far more accurate than body launguage.
     Ever meet a perfectly reasonable, nice-loooking person for the first time and can't figure out what is is that bothers you about that person? Something just isn't right?  Think you might be reading his or her energy? And it's telling you can't trust the words or body language coming off this personality. Then maybe not today, but perhaps a month from now, a year from now you read in the paper that this person has just been caught with his hand in the company till. Yup. Or that nurse that lives next door that everyone likes - except maybe you  and you don't know why - has just been arrested for beating up her child. Funny, you say - my child hated going to her house... Children and animals are better at this energy reading than we are. Probably because their minds are less cluttered.
     Think about the different moods you sense in people. You can tell when someone is down or someone is up before they've said a word. Happy, angry, healthy, sick are stong exuders of energy and easy to see.
     Here's the interesting part:     Someone who has a well-developed Sixth Sense or Intuitive ability has an extra-sensory perspective. They are able to read energy with more tools at their disposal than the rest of us. They are able to de-clutter their minds, clear the air-waves and allow the information in. A good intuitive can sense and read the energy around someone who may be in front of them or hundreds of miles away by employing the Sixth Sense. It could be that their own energy fields are reaching out and picking up messages from the energy field of this person. A medical intuitive is able to pick up the exact energies exuded by illness.
     Or it could be that the spirit that is in all of us, is communicating with someone elses's spirit. This is what I believe.    
     Whatever you believe, follow your own intuition. Nobody else's. It's interesting stuff isn't it?
     We have snow in Virginia today - I'm lovin'It!