What's Next?

My African friends will recognize this picture, so will many of you who have never been to Africa. (If I could take you all, I would).
This is a shrub that grows on the plains of Africa in summer, and in the mountains and on the coast. We call it "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow".
The first buds of summer that appeared Yesterday are tightly wrapped and deep purple. They'll begin to open Today and as they do, they lighten to a shade of lavender, wide eyed and searching for the sun. Tomorrow, in the last throes of their short life they'll fade to bright white, eventually falling from the stem to begin the cycle all over again.
Proves my point that we're all connected. How so?
Think about it. We arrive on this planet, tightly wrapped from our mother's wombs - you can still see the creases on a new born baby - and some of us are pink but one of mine was verging on purple when he was born. We begin to open our eyes and gaze around in wonder, then step into life and seize it for all we're worth. From the first unsteady steps, we progress to the running stage and then there's no holding us. We leap into the full bloom of our lives with everything we've got seizing it with both hands, flaunting the beauty of our youth and energy for all to see. Shining as brightly as the sun by day and the moon by night.
And then, as though surfeiting of the glories of summer, we begin to fade. And "... nothing can bring back that splendor in the grass..."  (Thank you Mr. Wordsworth)

Eventually, we too fall from the stem and the cycle begins again.
So, my friends, Carpe Diem. There's lots of living to be done! Whether you're eighteen or eighty - healthy or ailing, give it everything you've got. Today belongs to us. Tomorrow? Who knows? It's not promised to anyone so take on this day and live it and love it and make it the best day of your life.

NOTE: Following the publishing of "By Morning's Light, so many of you asked me, "How can I connect with people I love on the Other Side?" In response to that, I've written a second book that tells you how I first became aware of souls speaking to souls. It's part autobiographical and part "How To." It's all fun! Funny, poignant, happy, sad and informative.
I've named it, "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow."  I hope it will be available this summer. 

Let Me Fix that For You!

There was a time not long ago when I really wanted to fix a dear friend of mine. Her life was turning into a shambles and she couldn't seem to find the answers to any of her problems.
I on the other hand, from where I was standing, could see multiple ways she could make things better.
Wanting to help her I gently pointed out a few things she could do to pull herself out of what looked like a free fall into a crash and burn situation.
She agreed with most things I said but I could see I wasn't making much of an impression. She's depressed, I decided. Well, we can fix that! A Zumba class! Lively Latin music, dance, exercise and fun all rolled into one neat prescription for depression. She just stared at me. Okay, maybe I should have started with Yoga. Maybe, she said. Thinking I'd found an inroad I plied her with numbers to call and even gave her the names of a couple of Yoga instructors I knew.
Nothing happened. Maybe it was a nutritional thing. Should she try cutting out wheat? Sugar? Maybe, she said.
What about nicotine? To me this was the obvious thing. No! She refused.

***

The key phrase here is; from where I was standing. It's the totally wrong vantage point. If I'm going to fix her I have to be standing where she is. In her shoes and walking her path. The trouble is, that's not possible. As close as I am to her, I have no way of knowing everything that's going on in her life. From the outside looking in it seems that her life should be very good. A hard working husband, good kids, a comfortable home. What am I missing?
Nearly everything. No one can get into the soul of another person. No one knows the inner workings of someone elses marriage, someone elses family or home life. No one knows everything about anyone elses background, childhood and how that may be playing into the present circumstances.
Except for the person who is living that life.
So maybe I should abandon all my efforts to help?
I don't think so. I just have to understand that she is the only one who can help. If she wants to. She has to decide to fix things for herself. What if she doesn't want to? Well, you may stay awake at night worrying and fussing and getting frustrated with her but it won't help anyone.
So with this friend of mine, who I love, I have decided that she has to make her own choices. She has to walk her own path. And I have to be okay with whatever she decides to do. I can be here for her anytime of the day or night she needs to talk to someone. I can support her decisions - whether I agree with them or not - remembering that what may not be right for me, might be okay for her. And I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot walk her path for her. I can be there if she trips and I can pick her up if she falls and give the encouragement she needs to keep moving forward. And I can pray that it's enough.

***

 It's snowing again today! A chance to make new footprints in the snow and if you feel like it, change the direction of footsteps past. If not, keep on moving forward.

Be Happy.

One World, One Dream, One Heartache One with You

I've been thinking about this "Oneness" thing we all talk about. "We are all one."  How can that be? I'm here, you're there. And not only physically but sometimes mentally too! What's it mean "We're all one"?
"I don't want to be you , thank you very much" you think, or "Oh, how I wish I was you..."
Well, you are and so am I. 
In this wonderfully illusive reality of many dimensions we live in, we share one thing. The collective soul consciousness of all living things. It is our collective heritage. And whats more, it is ours to tap into whenever we want to and even when we're not even trying to dial it up. Very often this ultra awareness seeps into our preoccupation with busy lives and predispositions without any conscious effort or desire on our part.
Simply put, I feel what you feel. If you're happy, so am I. If you're sad, I am too. If you're feeling angry or jealous, well, we can all feel that too because it is part of our consciousness too, and at any moment, we can all be in the that frame of mind for one reason or another.
We can feel each others moods because we recognize them as our own. And it doesn't just happen with people we are close to. It's fair to say that the empathy may be more intense with those close to us, but think about how you feel in this instance: You're at a community picnic at the end of summer and one little boy who hasn't once been able to get up on water skis suddenly rises up and stands upright for the first time. Everyone of us are on our feet applauding. We feel all of his pride in his accomplishment and all the relief and pride in his parents. He's not our child but we all know the feelings because we have all been children and most of us are parents and even if we're not parents, that same oneness has kicked in to make us all feel the same thing. How absolutely fabulous!  
The same thing happens when life happens and things get sad. Look around a funeral gathering. Maybe I've lost someone I loved and maybe I haven't but my sadness for you brings me to tears because on some level I recognize the feeling although in different degrees of intensity.
And it isn't confined to our species. A tiny kitten walks into a room full of people. It's lost and crying for it's mother. I can just hear the "Ahhhs!" and see people reaching for it to make things right. We recognize the same feelings that exist in our species. I once saw a baby dolphin die because it was caught up in the fisherman's nets in the Seychelles Islands. I can remember how sad I felt as I watched it's mother swim up and down the shore all day long looking for her baby.
Have you ever watched a giant tree fall? Cut down after maybe hundreds of years of sharing its shade, it's colors, it's beauty with us? How many of us feel a wrenching in our chests. A loss of something wonderful that is gone from our lives?
Do you ever thank your roses for blooming so magnificently and bringing you so much joy? I do. And haven't we all felt the urge to "kiss the bride"? To feel her happiness and save it in our hearts for a while?
There is nothing you can feel, that given similar circumstances, I couldn't feel too. And nothing you can accomplish or fail at that I couldn't accomplish or fail at too.

***

It's what my son Drew said when he spoke to me in Spirit from the Other Side in the book "By Morning's Light"; "...We're all one, you know. The ducks (in the lake) the old turtle ... the spiders on the leaves you're holding .. even those flowers in the rock bed ...we don't recognize that on earth , but here - it all comes near."

Yes lovely people, fellow keepers of each others consciousness, joys and sorrows, we can talk and feel  across species and dimensions. Because we are all one no matter where we are.

Be Happy.

Beach Time!!

It's mid-winter where I live. Sunday February 3 is a cold day in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the ducks in the cove are making me feel even colder. Don't you get it? (I thought projected through the big living room window.)  You don't go swimming in February unless you're a Polar bear. And none of you look big enough to fit that bill! I get it that the water runs off a duck's back but don't you guys have any blood in your legs? I know it's not cold blood because you're a mammal but if it was ever hot, it's frozen now. But I can't worry about the ducks. They probably have their own mothers for that.

But what about me? And all of you out there who want to be at the beach instead of staring out at snowy fields and perishing ducks? Some lucky friends of mine went to Florida this winter. That must be nice, but it's a long way from here so I've lost my lunch buddies for a few months, which isn't nice. And I don't really want to go to Florida so I have to make other plans.

February needs a plan. If you don't have a plan light deprivation or something equally as mind-boggling is going to get you. And when it does, you find yourself on the edge of the blues and if you want to keep from sinking into their murky depths, you better have a plan B. You hibernate of course, but you don't have enough fur to keep you snug all winter and my bladder wouldn't allow that kind of a nap anyway so hibernation for me is not a big option. 

I get restless. My limbs keep moving (pacing) my mind races, hatching outlandish story plots for The Great American Novel, tires of that and gets creative with recipes for Super Bowl Sunday. Recipes that later decorate the trash. Miss Kitty just stares at me accusingly. I can read her like a book and she's saying "Would you please curl up and go to sleep? I can't take this jerking around anymore. Do you want me to start climbing curtains?"

No I don't.

I've just caught a glimpse of my hair in the mirror. It's weeks overdue for a cut and it's Sunday and I'm pretty sure my hair dresser won't come over and cut my hair on Super Bowl Sunday. She probably has a life. So I'll cut it myself. This is probably certifiable but there's nobody here to certify me right now and when you live on your own you can pretty much do what you like. So I do.

An hour later I get the idea that I probably should have thought twice. I stare into the mirror turning my head this way and that but no matter how I try to lean it to the left, that piece that's cropped above my left ear just doesn't get any longer and there's no way in hell it's ever going to match the other side. And I don't even want to think about the bangs. To make matters worse, I think my hair dresser's going to Florida to morrow so I'll have to live with this. Oh sh---! Hibernation is out. Scarves are in but I don't want to go out anyway. I want to be in the sunshine, on a beach somewhere where it's toasty warm - with ice cream sundaes.

 So I'll just curl up in my lounger and meditate. What else are you going to do? So just tilt your head back, breathe deeply and voila! Blue seas, warm sugar beaches, crooked palms and coconuts. (Think Pina Coladas and pineapples) Seagulls, sandpipers, grilled shrimp and sunshine!  I'm at the beach! The hair will grow and one of these days it'll warm up around here. Have a happy February!
  

Ready for Foot prints!

Footprints in the Snow.

It's a cold January day and I'm sitting beside the fire watching it snow. Is there anything more peaceful? It's just beginning to mound on the sleeping flowerbeds and coat the bare limbs of the oaks and poplars beside the lake. The lake is covered in white back here in my cove and there's one lone goose perched on an upright log by the shore.
I have a couple of questions. It doesn't seem the right time to bring them up, surrounded by all this beauty as I am, but then cold January days are for reflecting.  
A friend of mine recently lost a close friend to suicide. He was in physical and mental distress but no one knew how bad that had become and he must have been too deeply into the indigo of depression to see his way out or to ask for help.
Why can't we see these things happening? How often do we hear, "I had no idea!" or "If I'd known, perhaps I could have helped..." Probably not, I think. Don't you think that by the time anyone realizes things are that bad it's too late for anyone to help? We comfort ourselves with that thought, and then another one pops in. "I could have helped if I'd known he needed help sooner. If he'd only reached out..." My thinking is that it's unlikely that most of us realize how much pain another human being is in unless they reach out and not many of those in trouble will reach out - perhaps because they don't understand the slippery slope they're on. And by the time they do - well, they're too far down the mountain.
Here's what I think about suicide. My belief is that we're all spirits. Long before we took on the mantle of human beings, we were spirit. We still are. Underneath the heavy cloak of earth, we're spirits. I also believe that we came to earth of our own free will, excited to try it out, confident that we could handle this school of very hard knocks.
Many of us can. As hard as this life gets, we plow on to the finish line.Some of us, it seems, may have jumped the gun. Perhaps we're impulsive beings, perhaps we're very young spirits, immature beings who once they arrive here find out this isn't what they had in mind! "Oh my God! Look where I've landed. Will someone please get me out of here?Help!
I think that sometimes this world we live in is just too damn hard. And for some of us there's no making it better. Some are just too tired, too sad, too disappointed and dejected to stay. They had some chances, some good times, but the bad times were just too much for them to handle. So they left. I believe they tried. They were not weak - just overwhelmed. Talented, many of them. Highly intelligent in some cases. It's much easier being pure spirit. And now they are.
Whatever happened, it's nobody's fault.We all have choices to make. We do the best we can. We all have free will and again, we do the best we can with that too. 
Sometime all we can do is to love one another. To make things a tiny bit easier on this old earth plain. And if we fall down on that sometimes, well, there's still time to make amends. To pick up and start again on a brand new day.
There's a brand new world outside my window. Pure white and unblemished. The snow is draped like fondant icing as far as I can see. I can't wait to step on it! It'll be like stepping into a whole new wonderland. How will  I mark it? I hope that the brand new foot prints I leave are better than the ones behind me. Maybe I'll make an angel - we all need angels. Everyone of us!

Dream Taps - Hellooo!

I think a lot about dreams with messages.
If you're like me, you'll dream a lot sometimes, or a little sometimes, and the dreams are either pretty lukewarm, straight forward flashes of pictures with landscapes and people and actions. Some make sense and some don't.

But every so often you get one that really grabs your attention. It's so real, so vibrant, rings so true that you know in the deepest part of your being that This Wasn't a Dream! And you don't care who says it is, you KNOW that you were there, in the middle of that dream, involved with the people and the dream action. When these dreams happen, I try to figure out what the message was. Usually it's pretty clear but sometimes it take a day or two to sink in.

Four or five night ago, I was sound asleep, minding my own business when one of these dreams dropped in. I was in the presense of two old friends that I had seen or spoken to for months, maybe as long as a year. I'm sure they crossed my mind at some point but it was a very busy time and sadly, I'd neglected them.

But there they were. The wife stood directly in front of me, her husband a little behind her and to one side. "We'll get through this," she was saying and as she spoke I had the real feeling that whatever they were "getting through", had to do with her husband. And then they were gone. The dream ended.

I thought about it a lot the next day, thinking I needed to call and say "Hi" if nothing else. So two days later I did.

When I asked, "How are you guys?" My friend said they were "okay". There was something in her tone (and the dream) that made me say, "Just "okay"?

"Well, not actually," I heard her say. "We're stressed out. But we'll get through this!" It turned out that her husband was going into hospital the next day for some pretty extensive surgery.

***

There were actually two of these "drop in" message dreams. The other happened the night before the one I've told you about. In this one I found myself again with three people, my sister-in-law, her deceased husband and me. He was climbing a ladder getting up onto the roof of a building. He had his back to us. She stood directly in front of me and said something I can't for the life of me remember. But I knew there was a message. So I called her.

She was fine, she said. And she sounded fine so I didn't press it. Then she told me, she actually had a terrible case of shingles. I sympathized with her, hoped she'd be over them soon, and she said she doubted it because they were TERRIBLE!

Try as I might I couldn't find the message here - but it was a message dream I knew. Then, about a week later, lying in bed early one morning I got it. About a year before my sister-in-law lost her husband, he was at our house helping my husband and son shingle the roof of our new garage! That's why, the the dream, I saw him climbing a step ladder up to the roof of a building.
There it was.

So pay attention to these dreams that feel so real that you know deep down they're not really dreams. They have messages.

Sweet dreams, everyone!

Happy New Year!

Christmas always comes before New Year's Eve. It's a fact. The more things change the more things stay the same. Yup. We can rely on Christmas coming before January 31st.
Well, this gave me a problem this year and it makes me wonder why we can't celebrate Christmas after January 1st.
Here's why: I was invited to a New Year's Eve Ball on the 31st of December and found the most divine sleek, classical black satin gown (strapless) for the occasion. All it needed was a choker of classically chunky diamonds to set it off as the last word in high fashion. Little pause for thought there as my bank account couldn't quite stretch to accommodate a set of Fink's chunky diamonds, but no problem, rhinestones work quite well, and you don't have to worry about highway robbers. But I digress.
 The dress fit like snakeskin - sleek, smooth and satiny with tiny buttons down the back disguising a zipper that would presumably keep it all together and hold everything up. Trouble was I first tried it on two weeks before Christmas and it fit like snake skin. Four weeks later, after a few Christmas parties, a sip of eggnog here and there, a martini one night and Christmas dinner combined with a trip to San Francisco and more than a few sips of Sonoma and Napa wines - not so much.
 I began to worry about the dress on the way home from San Francisco. I got onto the plane with my hand luggage bulging with left over truffles and chocolate Santas and my jeans bulging - with me. How could this be? These jeans used to be the most comfortable pants I owned. Did the California water shrink them? Probably not.

When I got home, I couldn't look the skinny dress in the face without daggers of guilt piercing my  bulges and did my best to avoid eye-contact with it as I anxiously finished up the chocolate I'd unpacked and started on the Virginia Peanuts and and leftover walnuts in the fridge. This was not good - but the more I thought about it, the more I munched 'til on the morning of the big dance I came to my senses and raced off to Zumba to loose five pounds in one hour. Didn't happen. I tried starving myself all day and at the last moment I took the dress down and tried it on ... drum roll...
Twenty minutes later, with two people tugging and sucking and squeezing, the zipper shot up my back. "Yessss!" I squeaked, because that seemed to be the only sound I could make. I tried to let out a sigh of relief only to find out that sighs are driven by air and I had precious little to spare in my lungs which appeared to be somewhere in the vicinity of my Adam's apple. Or was that my boobs? Whatever, they were quite spectacular in this trussed up mode.
 But breathing was definitely a source of concern. I rode to Roanoke to the dance, flattened out in the front seat of the car like a python who's eaten too much - go figure... stretching my lungs out to help with inhalation.
My emergency dress was in the back seat. 

The emergency dress was in the back seat in the event that the Old Year went out with a Bang! and I popped out of my sleek black satin like a watermelon pip sometime during the evening.Or worse still, that the zipper split and that silky smooth gown slithered elegantly down my legs pooling in a puddle of elegant black satin around my feet.
"We'll just tell everyone you're part of the entertainment," My date Jim said. "We'll say we couldn't afford a cake so you popped out of your dress instead."

Bad joke. I could feel myself hyperventilating. Smelling salts - I needed smelling salts. Jim didn't think CVS carried them.

***

I needn't have worried about any of this, as it turned out. My posture was perfect (had to be or - Pop!) as I tottered into the ballroom on Jim's arm. The chunky rhinestones sparkled, and I took small wispy breaths and everything was fine.
 I must write a note to the 3M company (or whoever makes these wonderful zippers) thanking them profusely for their craftsmanship and wishing them a Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you too. Let's all hope that 2013 exceeds all our best hopes for a really good New Year. The blog is coming back and when it does, there are two new books to tell you about. In the meantime, Love, health and happiness to us all! Chocolates are out for a while, though.
 

FEAR - THE MOST FEARFUL OF ALL THINGS

    The emotion of fear is in fact, the most fearful of all things. And the fear of death is one of its most prolific cultivations. It seems to be at the root of all adversity, the driving force used by fearful people to control their environment. Have you noticed how fearful people become mean people, offensive human beings, unhappy and vengeful? In its worst disguise I think fear is a killer of all that this happy, peaceful and loving.
     It is one of the reasons I felt compelled to write "By Morning's Light". My thinking was that if I could lessen the fear of dying by taking some of the fear out of the great unknown, I could bring some peace to people and in so doing, make this world a little happier, less stressed and allow people to fill that space with the far greater emotion of love - for each other and the world we live in.
     Wouldn't that be luverly!
     But sadly, there are people who are afraid to read the book because it might scare them. Fear of death and the unknown are in control here. Think so? Fear of sorrow and sadness.
     What if by reading this book you learned that there is nothing to fear?
     The great Hindu pacifist, Mohandas Ghandi has been quoted as saying that the more he thought about it, the more he studied, the more he became convinced that sorrow over death maybe the greatest illusion. "There is no death," he said. "No separation of substance." 
    What if by reading "By Morning's Light," I could show you that we don't die? Our physical bodies stop working when, for whatever reason, old age, illness or accident, the source of their energy departs. But in the reality of the collective consciousness, their spiritual energy is still very much alive, very much within our own sphere of consciousness, our own physical and ethereal space. It hasn't left us.
     But you already know this. You're just not sure you believe it. Have you ever felt a spirit? Or seen one in a dream? Most of us have felt the presence of loved ones who have left this earth. And most of us shake our heads in disbelief and say, "I must have had too much coffee." Or "Pure coincidence! Only a dream!"
     It's not easy to admit you've seen a ghost. Nobody wants to feel like an idiot. And its not surprising - it wasn't so long ago that some of us were burned at the stake for believing such things. The whole village showed up for the fireworks!
     Well, I believe such things, and I'm not afraid of institutional councils or inquisitions. I'm hoping to light up the village in a very different way, with light that can permeate the darkest part of our greatest fear - the fear of death.
    We don't die, she says! What nonsense.
     But what if I'm right. What if I could crack that window open for you, allowing you to light up the dark for a minute, an hour - maybe longer.
     My book has done, and is doing, that for thousands of people. It's a great read. Sad, sure. But mostly happy, uplifting, funny and very real. It's a quick read with the most common comment being "I couldn't put it down.
     I hope you'll read it and if you get to the end of it I hope that even if you're not convinced, you'll ask yourself, "What if? What if Ginny's right?"
     And he book will have done its job.
   
     Tomorrow I'll write about my cat - who is afraid of nothing. :)   
     
    
     

GO TEAM!!

Hi Everyone,

Tomorrow, the publisher of  'By Morning's Light' pulls their safety net out from under me, leaving me to carry on the publicity with out them. I have no complaints. They've given me three good months of their weight behind the book, as well as the force of their publicity team headlining and spot-lighting the title, but now it's time for them to move onto the next batch of books and leave me to my own devices. Sink or swim in other words.
So, I"M SWIMMING!  Who'd like to be on  my team? One way or another, I'm pushing this book to the NYT Bestseller list - are you coming? Climb aboard - when we can afford it, there'll be cocktails all around but for now we've got to get paddling. (The 200 hp Mercury outboard motor is on order)
     Here's what I'm talking about: I was in Barnes & Noble a couple of days ago, nonchalantly walking by the bookshelf that hold's "By Morning's Light." A man was standing there reading something else.NOT my book. So I wandered by, lightly and breezily - humming a little tune - and with a great deal of cooool I casually pointed to my book and said, "Have you read this book?" He jumped and shook his head looking a little panicked. "Well, you have to read it," said I. "It's absolutely amazing !" And wandered off before he could turn it over and see the picture on the cover.
     Now. That was a mistake according to one of the team. "You should have offered to sign it!" She said. And she's right. Put the thing in his hands and pull out a pen and before you know it he's wandering towards the check-out looking dazed. That's strategy # 1.
So, team, next time you're in any bookstore that's carrying The Book, you know what to do. And if he has a friend, give them two. Desperate times call for desperate measures so the tough have to get going. Try not to shove or push anyone up against the wall though. Threats are out, unless you can come up with something like, "I think I'm going to cry ..." Only works with some men, so not totally reliable."Buy it or else!" - not so much...
     If you're in a bookstore that isn't carrying the book (God forbid) - casually ask, "Why the Hell not?"Grab a pen off the desk and write down "HOW TO ORDER! Llewellyn.com - Amazon.com -Ginnybrock-author.webs.com" And say "There! Don't you know this book is on it's way to the NYT Best Seller list? Everybody's asking for it!"  That's strategy #2
     Seriously. If you liked the book, please introduce it to your book clubs. If you know anyone you think it would help, give them a copy or go to the bookstore with them so you can show them where its stashed. (And look out for potential 'sales' at the same time) If you work for a hospice group, an intensive care facility, bookstores or libraries, or belong to women's groups, grief support  groups or any group - tell them about Morning's Light. That's strategy #3 
   
GO TEAM! I'm betting on YOU! (No whining!) We're going all the way to New York!!