Over the last two weeks on this Blog/Video Log, I've shared with you how I've been blessed by spirit reaching out to help and protect me during some of the more challenging moments in my life. This week, I'd like to share with you one more story where a gentleman who had recently passed away was protecting his wife by reaching across the veil between life and death.
This particular event took place when my husband, Frank and I were traveling in New Zealand in 2005. We had always longed to go there knowing how truly beautiful it is in so many ways. For our accommodations we preferred farm stays and home stays as this
gave us the opportunity to make friends and have more personal
interactions. New Zealand's people are bright, intelligent, creative and kind. The landscape is spectacular. And for me, as a working psychic, I was amazed and delighted to discover that my clairvoyant function was extremely heightened every day that we were there. I was able to avert danger, interact with nature and sense the presence of spirit at a much more profound level.
The story, that I'd like to share with you now, took place after we had crossed from one "island" to the next. At the ferry station we decided to take a taxi van with several other travelers to our separate destinations in the area. I helped the driver load our luggage into his enclosed trailer. Then off we went. After dropping off most of the other tourists, but with still a few to go, we arrived at our destination, the home of a woman whom we had contacted a day or two before.
Frank jumped out to go to her door and be sure that we had arrived at the correct address and I got into the trailer with the cabby to sort out our bags and began placing them on the curb. Frank came and got a load of our cases and took them in. Then an older gentleman, presumably the husband of our hostess arrived on the curb full of appreciative and welcoming softly murmured comments. After a quick little exchange of smiles, I resumed my activity in the trailer and emerged a few moments later with the last of our bags. From the curb, I saw the elder gentleman enter the front door of the home and I then followed after him.
Once inside, I met our hostess, who was just showing Frank to our room, right near the entrance. I went on into the room to freshen up while she invited Frank to come upstairs and see the kitchen. After showing Frank around, she then went up to the third level to resume watching a very exciting tennis match on the telly, and invited us to join her, if we'd like, once we had settled in.
After looking around, Frank returned downstairs and I asked how he liked meeting her husband. Frank was nonplussed by this and said that her husband and her two teen-aged children had all died the previous year in an automobile accident. Our hostess had shown him a photo of them. She also said that she was looking for a little more income and that we were her first home stay guests. It was right after that that she had excused herself to go upstairs to finish watching the game.
Hearing this I followed Frank up to the kitchen area to see the picture and there, in a photo, with two beautiful youngsters and our hostess beside him, was the older gentleman who had greeted me with smiles of welcome out in front of their home. Apparently the husband, unbeknownst to our hostess, had reached across the veil to greet us at the curb to see if wee would be suitable guests in their home. Evidently we passed his approval and received his welcome.
I am touched to know that our loved ones can help us not only in life, but also in death. They watch over us, whether we are aware of it or not, just making sure that all is well.
© Josephine Laing, 2015
We spend over a third of our lives asleep and dreaming. Dogs dream, cats and horses dream, we all dream. And we do this for a reason. Without sleep and dreams, we die. Even if you don't think you dream, you do, many times a night.
We dream to clear our psyches of the stresses of the day, we dream to be able to see and know ourselves more accurately. We dream about our denial and repressed issues in order to bring them to the forefront of our awareness and we dream for optimum future guidance in our lives.
In 1984 a man named Mellen Thomas Benedict died of cancer. But he didn't remain dead for very long. He popped back into his body miraculously disease free. While he was on the other side of life, he experienced many extraordinary insights. But, what he shared that really stuck with me is this; he was told that from a Universal perspective, we are a fairly ordinary planet in a relatively ordinary galaxy, but the one thing for which we are legendary throughout the Universe is our ability to dream the solutions to our problems. Think of it. Legendary.
So, I say, why not make good use of this planetarily unique talent of ours, and do like Thomas Edison did and sleep to find the answers to your most pressing questions. See what your sub-conscious mind has to report. Catch your dreams and that 'state of the union address' that you receive every night about your life. Find your inspiration and guidance by paying attention to where the big dreams of your super-conscious mind guide you. Take the time to remember your dreams and then work with them so you can stand firmly at the helm of your life. It's what I do and it works great for me and I hope that you find your way to make use of our wonderful dream time too.
For tips on how to remember and interpret your dreams, please go to the Radio Archive page of my website, stepintomagic.com and click on the month of May, 2015. You will find three hours of free information there all about our dreams. May you have a good nights sleep and many sweet dreams.
© Josephine Laing, 2015
After experiencing eighteen deaths in twenty four months back in the early part of the new millennium, Frank and I felt as if we had gone through the advanced course on death, loss and grieving. Our friend, Rupert Sheldrake has postulated that there is a resonance between individuals of a species that lets them know what has come before and what might lie ahead. As Frank considered this idea in terms of these many deaths that we'd experienced, he came up with a theory of his own.
Frank noticed that often with the loss of a loved one, he would feel off-balance, even clumsier. He also felt a void, not just psychologically, but also physically. This made him realize that the energy field of the person who had died was gone. Their body was no longer there to resonate with. Similar to a bat or a dolphin who uses echolocation, the energetic signal that Frank would be sending their way was no longer bouncing back to him. He felt that he literally needed to reformat his own field in order to steady himself once more.
So, how do we reformat our field? Well, we can start with all of the many ways that we process our grief: replaying the scene in our mind, reliving it with our friends, loosing ourselves in our work, allowing the passing of time, getting lots of physical exercise, realistically looking at the relationship we had with the one who has gone, seeing the attributes of those who have died in those who are still alive, doing art, letting ourselves cry as much and as long as we need to.
There are also other ways that we can heal ourselves energetically. Sometimes, if we are lucky and open to the idea, our loved ones can reach across the veil between the living and the dying to touch our lives in meaningful ways. This can often allow our healing to come to us almost instantaneously.
My friend Lillian lost her son. He was the happy one who always made her laugh and she was just so sad that he was gone. She couldn't stop grieving and crying. Then, one night while she was in bed, she awoke to the presence of a light in the room. As she looked, she realized that it was her son and he was looking so very sad. She asked him, "Why are you sad, you're in heaven?" And with that he faded away.
In that instant, Lillian realized that the reason he was so sad was because she was so sad and she knew that he wanted her to be happy. Our loved ones don't want us to mourn our lives away. They want us to enjoy and love our lives. In that moment, Lillian knew she had to heal her heart and get on with her life and find her way back to balance and love again. And with that determination, she did.
When our dear friend Franci died, we all went out on a boat onto the bay to scatter her ashes in the waves. As her son poured the ash we tossed flowers from the garden into the water. Some of the ash floated on the surface, some went straight down tinkling in the sunlight that pierced to the depths and some took flight in the air. As a gust of ash blew up I was about to take a breath and there was Franci, ready to enter my lungs. So I inhaled. Right then, Franci's totem animal, the dolphin, appeared. Not one, but three of them, arching up out of the water into the ash and flowers, circling round several times filling all of our hearts with wonder and a fond farewell. We knew in that moment that Franci was in good company and we all celebrated her life and her love.
Our hearts do get broken, but sometimes spirit steps in to help and lets us become more able to navigate those turbulent waters and find our way quickly back onto the road to joy.
© Josephine Laing, 2014
In honor of Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos I'd like to share with you an experience that I had a decade ago while Frank and I were traveling in New Zealand. It shows the depth of love and caring that those in spirit can express to us across the veil.
We had just arrived in Wellington from the Ferry and hadn't yet rented a car. So we decided to share a taxi van with several other travelers. The driver set off to deliver all of us to our respective destinations.
Frank and I had been availing ourselves of farm stays and home stays and had arranged with an older woman named Sylvia. She had shared with us on the phone that she was looking for a way to make a little more income and thought she'd try opening her home to visitors. We were to be her first guests.
As the cabby and I were busy rearranging and unloading bags from his trailer onto the sidewalk, Frank, alternating with a stately elder gentleman, were shuttling our bags up to the front door of the house. The man smiled and murmured a few words in my direction as he gathered up our things and I looked forward to being properly introduced at the door, once we were all ready to go in.
When I entered the house, I was cordially greeted by Sylvia and she showed us to our room. Frank went with her to see the rest of the house as I excused myself to briefly freshen up. Before I had made ready to leave the room, Frank returned and said that the place was very nice and that Sylvia loved tennis and was in the middle of watching a game.
I asked how her husband was and if Frank had enjoyed meeting him. He said, "No, Sylvia shared that her husband is dead. He and their two teenaged children died in a car crash late one night the previous year." I said, "Well, who was that man then?" Frank asked "What man?" I went on, "The older gentleman who was collecting our bags." Frank said he hadn't seen anyone. He went on to say that Sylvia had shown him a photo of her family. It was up in the kitchen. I went up to look at the photo and there he was, smiling at me with Sylvia and their two children by his side.
I suddenly knew that being as we were her first in-home-guests, he had come to make sure that all was well before she embarked upon this new venture. Frank and I had apparently passed his purview and were welcomed by him into their home.
With love, only love, a very Day of the Dead to each of you.
© Josephine Laing, 2014
