The following is a brief excerpt from my book, The Divine Me.  This is from a section titled “Facing the Mirror: How do you connect with your spiritual side?”  This book is available at Amazon in print and kindle.

·         Journal

I began journaling when I was twelve years old, inspired by Anne Frank.  In my twenties, my journaling was sprinkled with more literary pizazz and the influence of Anne Lindbergh and her diaries and letters. (I also wrote terrific letters, “Your writing is so vivid, makes me feel like I was there!”, so I was told.)

Sadly, along the course of life, usually as I was passing from one phase into another, I have thrown away many of my earliest journals.  However, there is a wide array of cheap spiral notebooks, leatherbound diaries, and note pads of various colors and design being held by a trusted family member, saved for the enjoyment and exploration of future generations of my family.

I do believe that the modern version of the old-fashioned idea of journaling is now called… a blog.

·         Explore a spirituality you are unfamiliar with

If you didn’t skip the introduction of this book, which I do with books sometimes, you will know that I was touched by random connections with Catholicism; the desire to embrace Judaism (that Anne Frank influence again, I was thirteen at the time); and then I stumbled into witchcraft, without really knowing what I was doing, but hey, not completely guileless either, even if we didn’t have the internet, we had movies and tv.

I was raised in an open and welcoming atmosphere of spiritual exploration and discovery.  How do you know what you believe if you’ve never studied all the options out there?

·         Get acquainted with your spirit guides

During part of my journey on this pagan path, I was introduced to two of my spirit guides, in dreams.

The dark-haired cat lady: She resided in some sort of large helter-skelter kitchen, her countertops filled with bowls and cutlery and herbs and small bottles and jars and open cupboards and pots and pans all over the place… and cats.  Cats of all colors sitting calmly on the countertops, stretched out on the floor under the table and lounging in a patch of sun by the window.  All colors and sizes, wherever you looked. Cats, cats, cats.

She was small but thick, almost elfin, and her black and gray streaked hair was a wild untamed tangled frizzy mess, her nose was large, her features coarse but pleasing, her shoulders slightly hunched, with a hint of a widow’s hump.

She wore a long boldly colored shiny silk house dress, with lots of pink and geometric shapes and greens and yellows and blues. 

As she busily tottered about her messy kitchen, seeing to the cats and the pot of steaming soup on the stove, she was talking to me, she was telling me wonderous and great things that would change my life.  With her back to me, a large wooden spoon in her hand, slowly stirring her cauldron of soup, her words flowed.  I was silent, and I listened.

The white haired goddess:

A woman was sitting on the floor a short distance from me, cross-legged, sitting so straight and tall, her back to me.  I stood watching her, fascinated by a strange glow of light shining on her, illuminating her silhouette, casting a shimmer to her very long mane of silver hair.

I was in the presence of something very powerful and very sacred, and I knew that she had something important to tell me, possibly the most important thing I would ever hear.

I leaned in, cocking my head to listen intently.  Her soft voice rose then, sounding calm and smooth, gentle and clear.  She said: “Learn to control your mind.”

·         Be still and listen to your inner voice

My inner voice has been with me since I was a very young child, only it was louder then, easier to hear.  Sometimes I heard it over the voices of people around me, and sometimes it was a whisper close to my ear.  It always made me pause, it still does; but now at my age, it comes and goes so fast, is so soft and fleeting, that I have to catch it like an elusive and mythical moth in flight.

Over the years, this voice has proven to be protective.  It has cast a light on an intuitive instinct, it has warned of impending danger; it has caused me to change a course of action; it has told many a story and revealed many secrets during tarot readings; and possibly, and most disturbingly, it has announced impending death.

When this happens, the warning of impending death, this inner voice has always used the same words: “Look, look again.”

·         Find Your Tribe

I couldn’t find my tribe, not in childhood, not in high school, not in the adult world, so I grew my own.  Six daughters and one son.

They are a tribe of mostly women, only one tall quiet man among them.  They are diverse, and intelligent, gifted, and creative.  They are uniquely independent and solitary. 

Each one has a personality that is unlike the others.  They travel different spiritual paths; they hold jobs in diverse areas of expertise; they are homeowners; apartment dwellers; and still, surprising as it may seem at my age, some are young enough to be fledglings, just learning to spread their wings.

This is my tribe.

No matter the physical distance between us; no matter the different schedules and lifestyles; no matter the amount of time that’s passed since we last talked, we can bring daily life to a pause and reconnect at will.

·         Give with no expectations

When I was eighteen, a very elderly man gifted me a beautiful sterling silver ring and bracelet of turquois.  He was my great-great Aunt’s life partner.  His name was Frank Petticord.  There was no special occasion, there was nothing expected in return.  He just saw this beautiful set of jewelry, and he thought that I should have it.

Forty-six years later, I still have the bracelet, and I think of Mr. Petticord whenever I wear it.  The ring was lost, only a few years ago.  It disappeared from my bedroom one day, never to be found.

Frank’s story is a rather sad one.  In the early part of the twentieth century, he came home to his wife and kids one day to be greeted by his father-in-law, who threw him off his own property.  Frank seemed quite surprised at this turn of events, totally caught off guard. 

Mr. Petticord was such a sweet docile soft-spoken man, I can’t imagine what the reasons were behind this event, but never-the-less he lost all contact with his children, who were kept from him.  His family, in this final stage of life, was my great-great Aunt, my great-great Aunt’s daughter and her son, my grandmother…  and me.

This jewelry is one of my most precious possessions.  RIP Frank.

Audio excerpts from The Divine Me

The Divine Me

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