Adding Value

I can be stubborn... or determined, it's all how your perception allows you to see the world.  In my stubborn state I will exert a credible amount of energy to resist doing what you ask.  In fact, more energy is spent standing my ground then if I just followed and got whatever task was asked of me over and done with.  In my determined state, I am stagnant, mulling over my task and applying the dreaded... Why?  My managers, teachers, parents and all authorative figures either learn to answer THE question, otherwise they are met with futile results.  The clever ones that understand my need to connect to a bigger picture I have adopted as mentors, whether it be in my personal or professional world.  I need value as to why I need to apply an exact amount of energy to accomplish something.  Doing something just for the sake of doing it never gets me motivated to do that task at all let alone well. 

I think this is where I lost my mojo.  My sister and I were debating my usual musings about the Universe, strange vibrations and all that "spiritual" things that I can openly discuss last week.  Okay so maybe Stephanie just muses over my rantings and communication is usually a one way street where I do the yakking and Steph just listens.  But on this rare night, my baby sister actually gave me an epiphany into my uncomfortable state of being. 

One of the coping skills I often use in the navigation of life is I put people I admire on a pedestal, cultivate a relationship with them and bombard them with a bazillion questions as to "why" they did what they did, and "what" would they do differently knowing what they know now.  I know, that last sentence was probably vernacularly structured totally convoluted but if you read it slowly and pause to ponder it makes perfect sense.  I "studied" their successes which then allowed me to go through my own learning curve pretty much flawlessly if I studied properly.  Contrary to what my ego may project, I am a student of great humility and know that I know very little.

Well, I suspect my mojo started to waver when I accomplished many of my goals in 2010 but I never really felt fulfilled?  Bizarre when you say it out loud.  As a textbook Type A personality I have my life mapped out.  As stated above, I don't move on my map unless I have a destination.  My map was that I lead a life as a good person and help out wherever I can (my Asian parents would be so proud that I listened to them amongst all the beatings)!  I would finish school with high grades and get into a good University with a scholarship.  I would obtain a degree.  I would get a great job filled with endless opportunities and I make tons of mistakes at the expense of someone's pocketbooks.  I would marry my bestfriend who would take care of me and my children better than I would.  I would start my own business and apply all my knowledge that I acquired into it and watch it grow.  I would start my own family and teach my little ones everything I know and watch them grow.  Sounds perfectly solid no?  With the exception of the time I broke into the local school to vandalize and got caught in the shower with a boy, my life map had very little speed bumps.

So what the hell happened in 2010?  Well remember on September 10, 2011 the Lower Mainland experienced an Earthquake that registered 6.4 on the Richter scale.  It didn't cause any damage and for the majority of people they felt nothing.  That morning I woke up feeling like shit and when I looked into the mirror to get ready I was shocked to see my own image because it looked like ike the ugly bus hit me.  I dragged myself into work and puttered through my ambitious list but was battling what felt like a migraine and hangover.  I dismissed the bizarre feelings and around noon reports started coming in about the earthquake.  My part-timer and I noted that it was so weird we too didn't feel any movement.  Approximately an hour after I heard about the news a woman and her friend came into the store.  I approached her and greeted her like every other customer and then blurted out, "Hey, did you ladies feel the earthquake?"

She turned to me, shot this wild look and said, "No, what earthquake are you talking about?"  I brought her up to speed on the details and she said, "Well that would explain why I woke up this morning feeling very off."  Her words took my breath away because now that she mentioned it, that's how my morning started as well.  Out of the blue I randomly asked, "Are you a clairvoyant?"  She looks deep into my eyes and answered softly, "Yes I am why do you ask?"  That electrical shock that I am starting to notice happens quite often when I am in the zone "of weird shit I can't explain" started shooting through my system.  "I'm sorry, I have no idea why I asked you that!  You must think that was so weird," I stuttered apologetically.

The kind woman smiled back, "No I don't find it weird at all.  You asked because you are one too which I sensed when I entered the store."  She goes on and explains that when the Earth goes through events, she can sense the disturbance in the normal vibration that it emits.  She explains that all things on Earth are made of energy.  So far because it's scientifically based, I am following her explanation.  If we are all energy then each form on Earth emits a certain vibration.  When the normal frequency is off, those sensitive to it are also thrown off.  The analogy is you can't harmoniously hum in tune if someone in your choir sings off-key.  It throws off your groove.

She then states, "How many people did you ask about the earthquake since knowing about it?"  Ummm... okay that is an odd question but since you are non threatening I'll play ball, "No one, you're the first."  "How many people came into the store before you asked me?"  Wow... I feel like I am being led into a trap.  I swallowed, "About a dozen or so." "Do you find it strange that you asked me and no one else?" "Yes, well now that you phrased it in that context that is strange..." "Well it's not strange.  We are suppose to meet.  The question is WHY?"  She gives me her business card.  Her name is Shamira Virji and according to her pretty purple card she offers clairvoyant readings, spiritual coaching and meditation. 

Realizing that she might add value, I ask her if she feels that the world seemed off it's kilter?  Like maybe it's rotating funny?  She takes a deep breath and tells me that the Earth is definitely vibrating differently and it's change in vibration has affected many lives.  Hmmmm... I feel a hypothesis formulating here.  Shamira can tell I wanted to ask her a million other questions and she politely stops me and tells me to pull her card when I feel more clear about the questions I need to ask.  I take the hint and wish her a good day.

I call my friend Laura that night to tell her about my experience in my store.  Like Yoda, she tells me not to read too much into things and take them as a blessing.  She did confirm that Shamira's theory was very similar to one that was shared at a conference she was at.  Apparently there is a consensus that the Earth is vibrating at a different frequency then before with the purpose of dismantling an economy based on unsustainable, excessive consumption.  By doing this, Earth can bring us back to our life's purpose.  So me eating at McDicks and feeling all glorious in name brands like Coach and Lululemon is not assisting me in my life's purpose?  Wow... shocker I know.  The creepy thing is that this theory would explain the shitty economy and also how I currently feel. 

Now going back to my sister's brilliant observation.  Up until last year, I officially had no mentor.  Not one.  How come?  How is it possible that a life coping skill that I have applied as long as I can remembered not be in effect?  She points out it's because I have outgrown all of my current ones.  Oh... well that's shitty... so I am swimming in the sea of life and I have no wetsuit or even a damn lifejacket?  No wonder I feel like I'm drowning.

That's my big epiphany.  I did not have to lose everything I love or climbed the sacred mountain in Peru (although it is on my bucket list) or run away into the remote jungle and live off of bugs.  I was sitting in the comfort of the home I worked really hard to build, surrounded by the people I worked really hard to keep happy and safe and... drinking.  So perhaps the Earth is vibrating us into extinction, and perhaps I am embarking on a new journey that was never mapped in the Book of Huong and perhaps in ten years time this Blog will be documented evidence of the descent into insanity.  I am not sure.  What I am sure of however is that I need the Why and to get that I need to seek out a new mentor. 





 

11-11-11

I have not blogged for over 3 months because my life has been mentally hectic.  Today I am making the time to do it (even though I would prefer sleeping) because it's 11-11-11.  Technically because I am posting this at 12:52A it's already passed the auspicious date but in my world the new day does not start until I have gone to bed.

I am just going to throw this out there and it ain't gonna be pretty... anyone else out there feel like the world is off it's rotation?  If you know me, you should know that I am a very positive person, cynical yes, but I see the world as my oyster and the glass is always full.  Since the middle of last year I have been struggling to beam rays of sunshine from this Care Bear.  Not sure why.  I started noticing this and dismissed it as possibly the economic downturn, perhaps it's old age and I'm just crabby or even a bit of the post baby blues from juggling a baby, a toddler and a new business.  Then I started to be aware of the people around me.  Friends and family were are all entering major shifts in their lives.  We're not talking changing underwear here or trying out a new recipe.  People were changing careers, questioning long time relationships, uprooting their families and moving.  And these were just some of the more stable friends.

Personally I have been feeling anxious.  I don't normally feel anxious so I didn't realize it was anxiety until someone close to me was clinically labelled with depression.  After observing the behaviors I recognized this odd feeling as "anxiety."  I am a person that thrives in chaos.  Ask any former manager of mine, and they will report that my true colors show when I am plunked right in the middle of mayhem.  The adrenaline starts pumping and instinct takes over.  I am sure a junkie goes through this same high.  Nope... this is definitely not a natural "Huong" emotion and I am highly uncomfortable with it.  When something like this happens I kind of withdraw, start being introspective and just observe...  I quietly gather my thoughts, assimilate information, formulate questions, seek answers and methodically apply trial and error hypothesis.

Well here are some interesting observations I have molded, digested and now spitting out for trial.  I know I must attract a different sort of energy and I am able to perceive other people's energy.  You may label this as an intuitive or clairvoyant.  All my life I just assumed I was a good people reader.  If you're following my blog I would have to assume you have met me in the flesh thus you have been subjected to my witty banters (well they are witty in my head).  Would you not agree that I am a good reader of your character, that I understand your core and that somehow I created a connection with you that seemed to have transcended time even though our relationship has not been cultivated for that long?  I have been told that I have.  Up until a couple months ago I just thought I was a good people reader but it has been brought to my attention from another intuitive that I have a gift of reading your energy level that normally is not visible.  I "get" people and that's why I have been successful (so far) in my life.  Apparently I translate energy vibrations so I intuitively know who to surround myself with, who to avoid and why you behave the way you do.  A random intuitive in a mall recently told me this but I won't digress from my point of topic (but will reserve it for a future one)!  And all this time I just thought I was super smart... nope, I just know how to read you and act accordingly to that in my favor.  It all makes sense now why I always knew who the liars, frauds, and scums of the earths were. 

Second strange epiphany is that I have been plagued with headaches all my life.  Ask my mom, she bought Costco sized Tylenol and Advil because I popped them like Skittles growing up.  I have been told by another person that I am "sensitive" to the Earth's vibration.  Again, another random psychic told me this when I was in my store and again, I will expand on this in a future blog.  I suspected this because every time there was a low pressure system brewing my migraines kicked into overdrive.  I also noticed that when there was some kind of weather disaster like the last earthquake we had I would wake up feeling like the effin ugly bus hit me.

So, here's my hypothesis.  Something is truly broken with the world we are currently living in.  For those of us that are sensitive to this, we are uncomfortable with the current vibrations so we're making huge life changes in an attempt to find our normal "groove."  I think I lost my groove.  Or perhaps I never had it but my current normal feels abnormal so I am seeking something... an explanation... something calming... something fulfilling... something that gives more meaning to the chaos.

I closed the store today to remember 11-11-11.  I was able to just hang out in my pyjamas, clean up my nest and stare in awe at my babies and how fast they have grown.  Perhaps staying in the moment keeps you sane from the chaos.  And perhaps all those years of popping the pills to dull the senses on my uber sensitive antennaes was an act of self preservation because ever since I had kids, the channels seem to be receiving too much information.

Pennies From Heaven

I feel compelled to post today.  So much in fact that I have broken my regular routine of tucking my little ones in bed, cleaning up all their toys so I don't kill myself slipping on it in the middle of the night and pouring myself a drink to bring the high octane of my brain down to a soft hum.  Instead, I am sitting in my store at 6:45P, listening to the white noise of the HVAC system and enjoying the filtered sun rays through our windows.  I really should be home to ask my babies how their day was and relieving my over-worked yet amazing husband for holding down the home fort.  But for right now, I am compelled to connect which means I need to write.

Last year my girlfriend Silvia had purchased a home with the intention of building her dream, forever house on it.  When she introduced her cute little beach cottage it was on a rainy and dark day... I know, so cliche and a perfect backdrop of all things creepy.  Silvia prefers a softly lit room of candles during the evenings and she usually has them sprinkled throughout the home including the washrooms.  I had to use the washroom so I excused myself and enjoyed my quiet time in the candle lit bathroom.  I usually love the soft lighting but I remembered feeling uneasy when I entered the room.  I sat down, did my thing and sat up.  Because the toilet is positioned right in front of the vanity mirror I freaked myself out.  I was not expecting to see a face looking at me so the image was startling.  At first I thought I saw someone and when I realized it was my own reflection I dismissed the poorly lit bathroom as a form of visual trickery.  Although my mind rationalized it, my heart was still racing.

After dinner Silvia wanted to grab some Curlys snacks stored in her basement so she asked if Tai and I wanted a tour.  Being nosy, of course I went with her.  We trottled down the back staircase and I paused at the room directly underneath the bathroom.  I blurted, "Did someone die in your house?"  Silvia is used to my random questions but this particular one did shake her a bit, "Yes why?"

"Was it a man and did he die in this room?" I pointed to a door that led to the room below the bathroom.  Silvia explains that her neighbors had told her that a man committed suicide in the basement and she does think it was that room.  She doesn't really know of any other details.  The little hairs on my neck started standing up and I shot her THAT look.  Silvia brushes off my intuition and  reassures my that she has never picked up any negative energy when she moved into the house.  I tried to accept her verison but I really couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.  I tried to be brave and when I entered the basement a giant, full sized witch greeted me in the musky basement.  I almost pooped my pants but being the cool, calm and collected person that Silvia is, she giggled at the strong reaction.  Silvia has a thing for collecting Halloween paraphenlia and apparently she had to buy this witch who just so happened to happily live in the creepy basement.  Freakin' fantastic.  Since Tai was with me, I wanted to appear that nothing was OVERLY spooky about this basement because he's very sensitive on my energies and can relay them.  I was grateful when we accomplished the mission of retrieving the snacks without any other incident.

About 6 months after that day I had a horrible nightmare.  I dreamt about the man that committed suicide in Silvia's basement.  He told me that he was possessed by a demon and the demon was trying to get him to commit horroble acts like hurting the people he loved.  Everyone thought he was just crazy but he wasn't.  The only way to protect his family was to commit suicide so the demon didn't have a phyiscal body as a conduit.  The man warned me that if they demolished the house, it will unleash that demon again and he was going to go after Tai because he was hyper sensitive to that energy.  In the dream, I fought tooth and nail saving Tai from the same fate.  The dream was so intense that when I woke up I was so disoriented as to what actually happened.  My pillow was soaked with tears from my crying and every muscle in my body hurt.  It felt like I was battling something.  I immediately went to Tai's room for reassurance that everything was just a dream.  I told Chris about my nightmare and asked if I should even tell Silvia.  Maybe it was just me being a freak and nothing is really wrong with the cute, little bungalow.

I finally did tell my friend about a month after the nightmare.  Silvia is very level headed and not a believer in spiritual things but she is open minded to concepts beyond what we can see and touch.  We figured maybe it is a sign so just to be cautious we should bless the house.  However, since it was my "feeling" I needed to go and find how someone goes about doing this type of thing.  It's not exactly a service offered in the Yellow Pages.

When I went to go see the pyschic Annar she confirmed my gut.  All I had to do was show her a picture of my friend Silvia.  Annar immediately told me that Silvia had a negative energy stuck in her house and I was able to pick up on it.  I was so relieved that someone else affirmed this and that I wasn't going crazy.  I asked her if I could pay her to come out to bless it.  Annar matter of factly told me that I can do it myself.  I shot her a confused look.  I decorate houses and make them pretty.  I don't do exorcisms.  She confidently lectured that my Spirit team was highly functional and I had the energy force to take care of it.  She reassures me that I was highly capable of doing it myself and it was time to start practicing.  "I know how to take out the trash to the curbside.  I don't know how to send boogey monsters back to where ever they came from," I declared.  Annar ignores my inside voice and tells me the logistics of exactly how one goes about blessing a house.

Armed with a box of salt, Silvia and I arrive on site.  The cottage is gone and all we have left is a poured concrete foundation of her dream house.  The sun was shining and the birds were out chirping.  The plan was that I do my "thing" and Silvia sits in my car just in case.  In case of what... we don't really speak of it but we know.  I feel terribly out of place and incredibly silly.  "So, this box of salt is the fine line of saving Silvia from demons?"  Well, apparently that's what Annar says.  I am suppose to sprinkle the house with salt and enclose the property in a circle of white light.  Hmmmm...

"Okay peeps upstairs let get this done!"  I recalled the hypnotherapist session that Laura conducted and tried to prepare my mind for calmness and emptiness.  As I started sprinkling, I asked my Spirits to embrace Silvia's home in a protective embrace of positive white light.  Any negative, dark energy needs to leave the home and is not wanted here.  I started at the door and repeated this mantra as I sprinkled the salt in a counter clock-wise.  In true Huong form, my mind starts chattering during this sacred process... "I hope her neighbors aren't looking out the door and wondering what the hell is this short Asian lady doing in our white hood of Twassassen?  And what the hell is she sprinkling?  Is that rat poison?  Perhaps cocaine?"  I was sure by the end of it the police was going to be called.

As I was nearing the end of my circle I sprinkled right over something sparkly.  Like all women, I couldn't resist shiny objects so I stopped momentarily to pick it up.  In my hand was a gold token in the form of a coin.  Ironically it was stamped with "No value."  I looked at it closer and then that same electricity started shooting through my veins when the realization hit me.  My peeps had sent me a "penny from Heaven!"  If you recalled my session with Laura, she had pulled a Tarot card to see if she had an answer as to why I was seeing her that night.  The card depicted I was surrounded by Angels and through her meditation she had told me that "pennies from Heaven and double rainbows" would be signs that I was on the right path or that my team was watching over me.

I beamed, my heart lifted and I finished my exercise of enclosing the circle.  I triumphantly walked over to Silvia who was patiently on standby in the car.  I handed her the coin and told her about my find.  Her big blue eyes got giant.  She shared that because I was taking so long she peeked  into the rear view mirror to check on me and she saw me bending down to pick up something.  So at that same moment, she witnessed that sacred message. 

Again, it probably was an old gold coin lost from a child's board game that was kicking around the building site.  Coincidentally, it just so happened to surface as I was sprinkling salt over it.

So, don’t pass by that penny, when you’re feeling blue. It may be a penny from heaven, that an Angel’s tossed to you – Charles Marshburn

Past Ramblings

Past life regression hypnotherapy is a robustly contested topic.  It is based on the assumption that people re-incarnate multiple life cycles to experience different lessons that can only be achieved in a physical form.  Advocates of this form of therapy believe that under hypnosis, the patient can access the subconscious where repressed memories from their previous lives are stored.  Understanding these elements may bring clarity into one's current life cycle thus allowing the patient to move forward into a more fulfilling path.  Skeptics argue that these memories are false and created under the power of suggestions from the hypnosis, imagination and previous experiences.  At its best, these confabulations are more like metaphors for your life's issues.

I am a believer and a non-believer.  I believe that under the ideal conditions, the power of suggestion can create many untruths.  I see it everyday in my own store when I am hawking my wares.  With the correct amount of nurturing I can create a compelling argument as to why you do need to spend $3,000 on a dining room table even though there is a perfectly good one sitting at home.  And this is done while your eyes are wide open.  I also believe that before we were born into our physical capsule, we chose the blueprint of our life, what lessons we would like to learn and appoint a designated team of "spirits" whom we entrusted to help achieve this goal of learning.  So somewhere up there, I have my life's blueprints stored in the akashic records.  Some life cycles we are successful in achieving the lessons we seek out to learn, some life cycles we are off track and totally miss the mark and in other life cycles we are not the students but the appointed teachers to assist someone else.  This I believe.

So Laura soothingly asks permission from my "soul" to access my previous lives.  I raise a finger to show that accessing the vault is permitted.  She tells me to look down at my feet and ask what color are they.  I tell her I am wearing boots.  I look around and notice that I am in a peaceful forest and I am riding a spotted brown horse.  Well this is bizarre... Laura instructs me to hold a mirror up to my face and tell her what I see.  What the?  I see a white, young male in his 20's staring back at me with warm brown eyes and brown wavy hair.  I also am wearing a green cap.  The awareness that I was a white male made me almost fall off my hypnosis-created horse.  Oh my stars, am I wearing green tights and a tunic?  How dreadful... wow, I think I smell...  Laura asks what I was doing.  I told her I am not sure.  I think I am just riding a horse.  "Where are you going?" she prods.  I don't know... I am just in a forest.  Wait a minute, am I Robin Hood?  I check my back and sure enough there is a carrier of arrows.  Hmmmm... my gut tells me I was looking for something but not sure what.  Laura encourages me to forward to a time when it was significant.  She snaps her fingers.  I am surrounded by fog.  Oh wait... maybe it was smoke... I can't tell.  The images don't come clearly to me like one would see in a movie.  Instead, thoughts come to me and I just blab them out loud to Laura.  After I blab something, the images in my head come into vision clearer.  She asks what was happening.  Houses are burning, people are running, there is lots of screaming and mayhem.  Laura ask what I was doing.  I am confused.  I think I am fighting someone.  I reach for my bow and arrow and expertly pierced the torso of another man that appeared to be a Viking.  I am still confused.  Realizing she wasn't going to get more details so she moves me to another event with a snap of her fingers.  I look down and I am holding a beautiful baby boy.  Laura asks who's baby was it?  I think he's mine.  Suddenly I feel wetness on my cheeks.  What the hell?  Am I crying?  Why the hell am I crying?  Consciously I am fully aware that I am crying but unconsciously I have no idea why.  Maybe I just witnessed the birth of my own child so I am crying out of joy?  Holy shit, this hynosis is so weird.  Laura asks how I died.  I blurted out that I died of old age.  She asks what I advice I can tell my current self.  To live a good honest life and to help as many people as possible.  The tears stopped.

Laura snaps her fingers again and I am suddenly transported to the middle of a field.  It's grassy and flat and there are endless blue skies stretched out before me.  She asks me to look down at my feet and tell her what I see.  I see brown skinned toes.  Eeeeewww... I see dirt under my unclipped toenails.  Man I need a bath.  She asks me to hold a mirror up and tell her what I see.  I hold up the mirror and see a dark skinned 12 year old boy with a shaved head.  She asks what was I doing.  I don't know.  Hmmmm... why am I constantly hanging out in the middle of no where and not having a clue why?  Laura realizes that I really don't have a clue so she moves me forward with another snap.

People are staring intensely at me.  Not just a couple, a whole crap load of them.  The group of noble looking men and women, dressed in what looked like Medival garb.  Oh... the people staring at me are my councillors or... maybe advisors or... maybe they are just admiring my nice clothes.  Oh my... these are nice clothes!  Well, thank goodness they aren't staring at me because I'm naked... and thank goodness my hygiene level is much better in this lifetime.  I think they are waiting for me to make an important decision.  Laura asks what it was.  I don't know.  She snaps me forward and this time I am staring out from what I think is my balcony.  I am admiring the beauty and happiness of that lovely morning and appreciating that my kingdom is at peace.  I enjoyed the view but since there was not much going on but me gawking at my own work, Laura moves me to my time of death.  I am in war.  My sword is really heavy and my opponent strikes it out of my hand.  He triumphantly stabs me through the torso.  I feel wetness on my cheeks again.  What the hell?  Am I crying again?  Laura reminds my soul that this was a past life and the pain I am feeling is not real.  I tell her I am not crying because of the pain.  I am crying because I feel guilty.  "Why do you feel guilty?"   I feel guilty that I let my kingdom down but I am so happy and so relieved that I am finally dead because I don't have to do this King thing anymore.  I am sobbing uncontrollably and the tears are mixing in with my lovely boogers.  Gawd... I am an emotional wreck. 

Laura attempts to release my guilt through some therapeutic words.  I am not really listening.  Instead I some how got transported to another scene where I am witnessing a lovely pale maiden with flowing red locks burn to death at the stake while people are angrily chanting,"Witch, witch, witch!"  I realized that she was the same maiden that was staring at me in the first scene.  Oh my gawd, this maiden is Laura!  I tried to save her but I couldn't.  I think she was a Priestess that healed people as well and she was a close confidante to me.  The guilt from not being able to save her created another wave of uncontrollable sobbing.  Laura eases my sobbing by bringing me back slowly to this lifetime.

My eyes flew open and I immediately grabbed the tissue box beside me.  I am exhausted but relieved to see me sitting on a Poang chair.  I felt like I ran a marathon, and then got hit by a train, and then got up to drink to the point I couldn't see.  I was speechless.  I fully knew what I said and remembered everything. 

Laura hands me a card that she pulled from her Tarot deck prior to me seeing her.  She asked the Universe what my lesson here was.  I look at the card and see a bunch of orbs in the modern artwork.  Laura explains that it means I am surrounded my Angels.  I smiled.  This does not surprise me.  She tells me that she asked the Universe to send me messages that I am on the right path by creating rainbows and pennies from Heaven. 


The natural skeptic in me digested the events that night.  Was I a King because I am an ego maniac so therefore I conjured up this need as an affirmation for my grandiosity?  Or am I an ego maniac because I was a King in my past life therefore remnants of my grandeur permenated through this lifetime.  Well, if that was the case then it sure explains my lack of humbleness.  Hmmmm... And why on Earth did I hook up with Laura?  Bizarre.  I felt quite strongly that in my lifetime as a King, Priestess Laura was a teacher for me.  Coincidental that she has been guiding me on this spiritual exploration in this life time?  Hmmmm... You know what's really infuriating?  Answering questions with questions.

Thank you Sensei Laura.  I promise to not let you burn at the stake in this lifetime.





   

Going With The Flow

It was a long drive. 

I had an appointment to meet with Laura yesterday after work.  When she gave me her address I sarcastically commented that my passport had expired and so I wasn't sure if the delegates of Maple Ridge would let me in her neck of the woods.  I was chatting with her on Facebook and I could sense she was rolling her eyes at my witty retort. 

Traffic was at it's peak and of course the weather started to turn ugly.  "Great... this is freaking fantastic."  I call Chris to let Laura know I would be late.  As I manuever myself through the GVRD my mind started wandering back to our Facebook chats.  Laura is a clinically trained hynotherapist who I just recently started befriending.  During her own journey into her life's purpose she had recalled two past lives.  In one lifetime she was a Priestess who healed people but eventually felt so burdened with her talents that she decided to stop practicing her gift.  She died from someone carving her heart out.  She learned that she doesn't have to feel obligated to serve her entire lifetime.  In another life cycle she was a Viking soldier who couldn't save his wife from being kidnapped and probably tortured.  He did re-marry and lived a long life but the guilt was never let go.  Such fascinating stories.

I am a strong believer in re-incarnation and cycling back into this physical plane with the purpose of experiencing lessons.  I am also what you may call an "easy" subject when it comes to the power of suggestion thanks to my vivid imagination.  If a person said, "Hey Huong, you want a caeser?" my mouth, like a seasoned Pavlov's dog, would start watering right on cue.  For this same reason, I refuse to watch scary movies because I am very talented at impressing the images I saw onto my own landscape... for like... weeks.  With this level of awareness I try to keep my expectations in check.  On the one hand I am also very nervous to see what past life issues I have been harboring unconsciously.  On the other hand, I wonder if my highly tuned and conditioned analytical mind would even allow me to be seduced to the hynotic level where the lymbic system runs automatically without the conscious mind.

Laura walks me through the technical aspects of hypnosis to clear up any apprehensions and misconceptions.  Laura has set aside a cozy, dimly lit room where I happily plunk myself into a comfy Poang chair.  I smile at the familiar IKEA best seller and start recalling how many units of this favorite lounger I sold as a sales manager.  I then notice the sounds of water falling and realized she owns one of those table top Zen rock waterfalls things... the same one in fact that Chris got for Christmas from his step grandma 4 years ago.  It then occurred to me that I totally tuned out what Laura was saying.  I reshift my body language to focus on her.  See?  This is how my mind works.  It rambles and rambles and rambles... all the time.  The really freaky thing?  I have these random thoughts but I totally heard EVERYTHING Laura had said down to the statistic that we use only 5% of our brain, leaving 95% of it unused in the sub-conscious mind.  If you really know me, you would know that I recall details vividly and with impeccable accuracy.  So how is it that I can have a separate conversation with myself about minute, trivial information but somehow can conduct a full conversation and acquire new information at the same time?  So... I guess Miss Laura has her work cut out for her.

She starts the session by turning on the CD with the new age music.  I feel like I'm at a spa.  I uncross my legs, slip into a cozy throw, close my eyes and follow her instructions as she reads a script.  She tells me to imagine myself floating out of my body and looking back down at it.  I envision myself doing this and start giggling - in my mind so I don't get in trouble.  I find it so funny that the person I imagined floating out of my body was not the actual image of the real me.  Instead, I imagine myself as a blue energy being with very little facial features and long blue energy hair down to my bum.  Laura instructs me to move my floating self to the left as far as the wall, or perhaps beyond it and even beyond this planet if I choose to.  In my head, I methodically repeat her instructions: Okay Laura I will float my weird, unclothed blue energy being to my left... ummmm... go past your wall... go outside your home... oh wait, is your home on a greenbelt?  Does that mean if I float too far a bear might eat me?  I started silently smiling in my head again because apparently I am being highly amused at my own running monologue.  Laura brings my floating self back to my core and instructs me to start creating a safe zone where I am at peace.  My mind starts imagining a peaceful forest where the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly onto the... ummm... pond?  Why on earth would you pick a pond?  Ponds are stagnant bodies of water which means it's a ripe environment for leeches to grow.  Eeeeewwww... great sanctuary if you're an animal that feasts on leeches.  For pete's sake if you're going to imagine a water feature go all out and do a waterfall.  Okay.. the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly on the small lake where it is being fed by a waterfall.  Is the waterfall being fed by a glacier or an underground aquifer?  Holy geezes, why do I have fairies dancing around me?  Shoo!  Dancing fairies you need to fly back to Care Bear Land before Laura finds out your distracting me from following her instructions.  The fairies ignore my request but they politely bring me a rock where I delightfully sit in the signature yoga pose of ohm.  Laura's voice then focusses my attention and tells me that I am so relaxed that my left leg is feeling so, so, so heavy.  It is so heavy that I can't even lift it.  Oh sure, I am so, so, so relaxed that I can't EVEN lift my left foot.  Apparently my blue energy being is sarcastic to the core.  Laura softly tests my state and tells me to lift my left leg.  I skeptically ignore her warning that I had no control over my leg and triumphantly... failed?  Wait a minute... holy geezes I can't lift my leg?! What the hell just happened here?  One second ago I was shooing away fairies like they were mosquitoes and the next thing I can't lift my own leg?  This can't be right.  I test my other limbs, everything is dead weight.  In fact, even after Laura gives me permission to float my left hand up into the air like a helium balloon I couldn't oblige.  She had to come over and lift it for me.  I am utterly flabbergasted.  Suddenly it dawned on me that somewhere between my own running monolgue and my conscious mind following Laura's instructions I was able to relax to a state of unconsciousness.  My mind goes quiet.  I feel that my limbs are frozen but I sense some tingling at the extremities.  I am aware that if I really wanted to, I probably can open my eyes and regain control of this physical ship so I can move limbs.  But then what?  That's seem silly trying to undo what you came to discover.  

Laura moves onto the next phase of the session and ask permission from my soul to explore it's past lives.  I give her permission by raising my right finger.  She starts describing elements of a carnival scene and although I am sure I heard her voice in the background, I really didn't follow her instructions as strictly as the first part.  Instead my mind starts wandering into a bizarre silence where its quiet... I have never experienced that before.  No monologue laden with sarcasm.  No silently smiling at my own reflections.  No digesting stimulation.  No fairies dancing on mushroom tops.  No going over a to do list.  It was just... nothing.  Just me embraced in a white light.    

Laura's voice jolts me out of the nothingness and she guides me to recall a past life.

Turning The Corner

I suspect I am tuning into something bigger... then myself.  For those that know me, this is a giant statement that carries some hefty weight as I am not exactly a frequent eater of humble pie.

I was on Twitter last week and made a pathetic attempt of engaging in this new world of social marketing.  I know you're suppose to be clever, quick on the draw and slightly edgy on your tweets.  Now if this was my own personal tweet and not representative of my actual company, then I wouldn't have had a problem.  But... since this is the professional world, my "Huongisms" would offend more than inspire.  So I resisted my natural urge to tweet shit like: "Please leave children and food outside.  Well behaved dogs are welcomed."  Instead I procrastinated and started to read the threads.  One tweet jumped out: What Age Is Your Soul?  I clicked on the link and started reading it when halfway through a customer interupted my flow. 

That night after the kids were in bed I tried to locate that link on the Twitter feed but gave up after 15 minutes.  Instead I Googled, "What Age Is Your Soul."  I found a link but not the orginal link.  Instead I found "Micheal's Teachings" which I tried to digest while downing some bad wine.  The content was substantial: http://www.michaelteachings.com.  The really bizarre thing is that it summed up my hodgy-podgy belief system that I cut and pasted from whatever I believed made sense to me.  So strange that a document would summarize my views... and here I thought I was being original... apparently not.

The following night I learned through another social media, Facebook, that my mother-in-law's friend is a clinically trained hypnotherapist.  I started chatting with her and she agreed to do a past life regression on me which I am totally excited about!  I have an open mind so we'll see what she finds hidden amongst the cob webs and many life cycles of perfecting the soul.  I just hope she doesn't tell me I am the incarnate of Jack The Ripper or something.  I am more hoping she might be able to channel my Spirit Guides as I am still floundering in my sea of options.  We'll see.

Yesterday I watched Oprah which is not something I normally do.  She is an amazing woman but because of my busy life I have not been able to follow her as much as I would like.  On her last episode, she did however hit some very high spiritual notes.  So much resonated with me that I started crying... actually it was an all outright bawling session.  Again, if you know me... I don't cry.  I usually replace crying with anger unless I am hormonally retarded like during my pregnancy days.  Just something about that show clicked.

Oprah mentioned that life lessons are first done as whispers and they get louder and louder until you die from it or the lesson is learned.  My analogy throughout my life is that lessons are usually thrown at you like pebbles, which eventually grow into larger rocks and then into boulders until you have no choice but to face it - if you continue to ignore it, the boulder will fall on top of you and kill you - sort of like the house that squished the Wicked Witch of the West.  Again... why is Oprah echoing my life philosphy?  So strange.

So I have been highly contemplative, opening my channels, tuning in and observing from my seat.  I know a couple of truths about myself on this journey of life so far:

- True success is being true to yourself, regardless of what society tells you.  Accept your true self and feel the power of real happiness and peace.
- Real wealth is defined by the depth of your relationships.
- There is a higher power out there.  I am not alone.

On The Right Path

I am at a crossroad.  Don't worry, everyone is healthy and I am very blessed to have such an amazing family support.  Everyone in my family just seems to have a lot of things going on right now.

It is my belief that nothing in life is coincidental.  Everything is meant to be, you just need to be open to receive the "whys."  So... I had the bizarre coincidence of meeting a highly talented intuitive about 6 years ago.  My mother in law gave me her contact info and convinced me to meet with her because she was so creepily accurate with her own reading.  I met Annar, tested her talent and yes she proved to be deadly accurate about many aspects of my life that only close family members know.  She is human so of course, her future predictions so far have only been 50% accurate.  Considering that the actual stats of knowing your future are usually zero, 50% is pretty damn amazing.

I felt it was time to schedule another reading to try to give some insight into my crossroads.  The reading was suppose to be this upcoming Friday but she rescheduled it for yesterday.  Chris was originally going to come along but of course his beloved Canucks were playing so I was once again a hockey widow.  As instructed, I drove to her home with a blank cassette tape, my photos of the people I wanted to discuss and $90 cash.  I arrived on time but had to wait in her living room for about 30 minutes as she was running behind her appointments.

Annar called me in and I handed her the tape so she could record the session.  She popped it in and tried to record it but for whatever reason the recorder jams.  She starts cursing that she just bought it and then attempts to wrestle with the machine only to have the tape unravel in her hands.  She apologizes for her recorder eating my new cassette tape so she rummages through her desk to see if there was a spare kicking around.  Of course, there wasn't.  It then occurred to me that my camera was in my purse so I go grab it and ask if it was okay to record the session on video mode but I wouldn't point the lens at her.  Instead I would aim it at the tissue box on the desk.  She gives permission so I started recording in movie mode.

The last time I was at Annar's she mentioned at the end of the session that a maternal spirit, probably my grandma, "popped" in to visit.  I was highly confused at this comment because both my grandmas are alive.  Annar then said her name starts with the letter E... like Evelyn, Eleanor.  It just occurred to me that it might have been Chris' grandma Elaine who was very close to Chris and passed away from cancer when he was really young.       

Well when we started the session yesterday the first thing Annar mentioned was that my grandma was here with me.  Again, I told her both my grandmas are still alive.  Again Annar says, "Well the spirit is definitely maternal and her name starts with the letter E".  Realizing it was Grandma Elaine again, I told Annar to tell her I said, "Hi!"  On my list of questions to ask I had written down, "Is Kaiya the reincarnation of Grandma Elaine?"  I wanted to know because Kaiya's birthday was 2 days after Grandma Elaine's birthday so I always wondered if it was possible.  Well considering Grandma Elaine was still hanging out at my readings it was pretty clear that she didn't cycle back into this lifetime.  Suddenly, I noticed my camera retracted it's lens and shut itself down.  Frustrated, I tried to turn it back on and it never did.

Annar then asked, "Do you jam technology?"  "What?  No, not really.  Why?" I replied.  "Because your energy levels are so high!  I sensed you were arriving about a block before you actually were here!  People with your energy levels sometimes jams electronic things."  I raise an eyebrow and challenged that maybe it's not me but it's my "friends."  She then stares intensely at my forehead and tells me she can't read past 3 months into my future because my chakra is changing.  Apparently it's going from a purple back into a bright green which means in the next 3 months my life will be intensely changing and I will be entering the next phase of my life.  She tells me to come back in July because my purple aura is blocking her abilities to see past the immediate future.  I stare at her like she has two heads.  She reads my confused body language and attempts to explain something about a Saturn rising in my fifth moon... wait... or was it the Unicorn will be rising above the happy Leperchaun?  I can't recall because she spoke so quickly and I don't have a damn taped session to review.

Anyways, I pushed her to see what she can because I had a list of questions that I needed to rattle through.  She entertains me and discusses the future of my business and the future of Chris' business but then mentions she can't really tell because I am blocking her abilities with my blinding purple.  She starts going through the photos I brought and she tells me I will have a really blessed life and my 3 children will grow up to be amazing adults.  She pauses at Kaiya's photo and says she's very special.  Annar proceeds to tell me that she is an energy giver and highly intuitive like her mother.  What... come again?  She tells me that children like Kaiya, around the age of 2, will point up into the corners and start babbling to the air because they are conversing with the spirits.  Great... this wasn't exactly the talent I was envisioning for my daughter.  I was kind of hoping she was able to sing... or at the very least reflect my witty sarcasm.

Annar throws her hands up in the air and says that I really don't need her at this point in my life - I just need to trust my gut instinct.  She says I have the same talent as she does but I'm just raw.  I stare at her in disbelief.  My entire life I have been given many opportunities to explore this "talent" but never have because I was afraid of opening Pandora's Box.  Seeing that Annar couldn't do a good reading anyways I saw it as a good opportunity to finally ask a trained expert.  I explain to her about my stories of my "friends".  She studies me and then explains that my guardian spirits don't just randomly hang around.  They only come when I ask them too and or in times of need.  I bravely ask her to describe to me my guardian spirits.  She concentrates on my forehead.  She says I have a dominant one that is an old female soul and a distant one that is a younger male.  She also mentions that they are both Vietnamese.  I laughed because the weird thing is that it never occurred to me that my spirits were Vietnamese.  I know that sounds stupid.  Annar then says that my Guardians like taking the form of big birds.  I stopped laughing.

She tells me she will send a blessing to help sell my house and I better start house shopping because as soon as she starts praying it will happen quickly.  She says the house will sell for $525,000 to a nice young couple.  My new house will be beautiful and will have the numbers 8018 in it.  She tells me that as soon as I sell it I need to phone and tell her so she can focus her prayers on someone else.  I ask her why she is doing this for me.  She says because I have helped her more then she has helped me tonight.  Annar says it has been a long time, years in fact, since she has met an energy giver with such an intense purple.  She has been heavily drained for the past 3 weeks helping other people and my own energy has been able to re-energize her.  I look at her funny.  She notices the time and hints to me that my 60 minutes are up.  I take $90 out of my purse and she says she feels awkward taking my money because I helped her and not the other way around.  I said I felt weird not paying her so Annar compromises and takes only $60 with an agreement that I can come see her in July for a follow-up.  By then my purple would have subsided so her reading can be more accurate.

She walks me to the door and I ask her for a prediction on the Canucks.  She says I better have a tissue box ready.  I lectured her to keep the faith and she says, "Well they will need a miracle.  But hey, if you focus all that energy of yours towards them that might be the miracle that they need."

I drove home lost in thought.  I started to digest the evening's teachings and then blurted out loud, "Okay G1 and G2, if you are actually watching over me then send me a sign that I can't miss that everything will be okay."  As I started to cross the Queensborough Bridge, through the dark clouds, a double rainbow appeared.  One was brighter than the other one and to make sure I wasn't crazy, I took a picture of it while driving (which wasn't such as smart thing to do considering I am Asian and driving in the rain so thank goodness I didn't cause an accident).

I came home and told Chris everything and tried to retrieve the data from my camera.  The weird thing was that the camera does not have the video of the first 5 minutes of my conversation with Annar but it did have bad photos of the rainbows.  The other weird thing is that the Canucks did win - like I said, Annar is usually 50% wrong.

I also had the chance to Google the green and purple colors of my aura since Annar didn't really explain it to me in terms I understood:

Purple: Nobility of purpose, Spiritual and visionary leadership, Spiritual teaching and goals. Symbol of power, passionate belief, and respect. Idealism, Psychic manifestations. Abstinence and Sobriety.  Indicates spiritual thoughts. Purple is never a strong point in the Aura. It appears only as temporary "clouds" and "flames", indicating truly spiritual thoughts.

Green: Restful, modifying energy, natural healing ability. All natural healers should have it. People with a green strong point in their Auras are natural healers. The stronger the green Aura, the better the healer. They also love gardening and usually have a "green hand" - anything grows for them. Being in a presence of a person with a strong and green Aura is a very peaceful and restful experience. Green thought indicates a restful state and healing.

After I read these definitions the whole evening made sense.  Well it's as clear as mud anyways.  I tried to post this entry last night just before I went to bed but the Internet crashed.  Apparently Shaw was down for the entire Richmond network until the afternoon.  Coincidence... maybe?  Weird... absolutely! 

I am adopting the Rainbow as my sign from my Guardians.  I find it so poetic that as I crossed the bridge and demanded "whoever" to present themselves that I would be greeted with not one, but two rainbows through the dark clouds.  Movie symbolism don't get better than this. 

Embrace Your Light

As part of Best Buy's comprehensive training I was shipped (against my better judgement) to Edmonton in the dead of winter for the entire month of January to master the art of pushing imported electronics designed to "create a better life."

I am a reluctant traveller.  Contrary to popular belief, travelling for work is not glamorous and for a creature of habit and comfort such as myself, it's actually a form of torture.  By this point of my career I was already a seasoned traveller thanks to the demands of my previous role at IKEA.  I knew the ins and outs of living comfortably in a basic hotel which meant that yes, I took along an extra suitcase packed with my own pillow and blankie for long hauls.  Ya, go ahead and snicker but it is essential for my sanity.

I remember this day so clearly.  I was trapped in the back of the Operations room learning the archaic system of scheduling people to budgets and paying them properly.  It was about as exciting as watching beige paint dry.  I looked at the time and was excited to see that it was 5PM which meant I would be free from the shackles and finally able to leave the dark room of no windows.  Just before I was going to pack it up and call it a day I heard yelling and then a shriek coming from the Customer Service counter.  I flew open the door and my superviser and I ran into a crazed man holding a syringe to one of our Customer Service reps demanding money.  My adrenaline kicked in which meant my brain usually shuts down.  I immediately started using my big girl voice, "Put that fucking needle down and leave the store NOW!"  The wide-eyed man obviously strung out on some kind of high started to lunge over the counter that separated us from him.  I instinctly picked up the chair that was beside me and threw it at him creating enough aggression that he dropped the syringe and ran out the door.  "V," the General Manager who was also in training with me and was in charge of this ship for the shift came running up from the back warehouse after the other staff alerted him and called 911.  This all happened in less than 3 minutes.  We locked down the store and went through the painstaking process of filing all the police reports.  Luckily no one was injured except for the poor chair which probably had some DNA from the culprit attached to it since it did clip him in the head. 

Let's just say it was a bad day.  As a manager I have chased down junkies, kids stealing toys and yelled back at aggressive customers that felt they were entitled to the world but... being robbed was definitely a new achievement on the old resume.  It was 9PM by the time V and I finally left and we were heading straight to our hotel's bar.  Since all the staff and men in blue were finally not around us anymore, he started laughing like a crazy man.  Although he never witnessed the altercation first hand as he was 3 seconds too late, he did review all the security tapes with the police.  He confessed it was hilarious to see me bolt out the door like a bat out of hell, yell obscenities at the junkie and then hurl a chair at him when he started to climb over the counter.  Ya, really hilarious I'm sure.  I am 5' on a good day.  The junkie was over 6' and we logged him on our paper work as being approximately 200lbs.  It never occurred to me that further agitating the obviously strung out man was a poor decision.  Luckily the chair bashed his head enough to scare him.

My heart never slowed down since that incident and I badly needed a drink.  As V continued to chuckle through my glares I slammed the button on the elevator door to the floor where our usual watering hole was located.  The elevator door was just about to close when suddenly this woman that looked eerily like Bette Midler pryed open the doors and then just stared at me.  Our eyes deadlocked for the longest minute... E.V.E.R.

"Oh my God!  All this energy is from you?" incredulously asked the the stranger who was hysterically waving her finger at me.  I am a person with a very large personal bubble.  On any average day this bubble is usually 3 feet in radius which means no one except my immediate family can enter within it without making me feel uncomfortable.  After today, it had effectively increased to 10 feet, especially for spazzy women rocking a red fro. V can see my fists clenching up so he automatically stepped in between us.  "Excuse me, but do we know you?" V protectively asked.

The high energy woman embarrassedly apologized for the abrupt invasion and explained that she was one of psychics partaking in the "Psychic Circle Convention" that was being held at the hotel.  Her area of expertise is reading auras so when she noticed this huge "light force" pouring out from the elevator she had to rush to see what it was.  The intensity in her eyes as she was studying me made me feel like she was looking at me naked.  The woman with the massive hair just kept shaking her head.  She then explained that I had 5 times the normal person's aura radius which was so different.  She then grew quiet and stared at the space above my head.  "You have a black light that is hovering above your own life energy!  But it's not attached to you, there is an actual gap between your light and the black light.  Do you notice if street lamps or other electrical items surge when you walk under or near them?"

I was caught off guard and highly annoyed because I can feel my coping system shutting down.  I really needed a stiff drink and the last thing I wanted to do was discuss the colors in my rainbow with the short, roundish woman who kept invading my space.  "I'm sorry we have dinner reservations and we're running late."  The woman again realized how poor her social skills were and apologized.  She gave me her card and told me to call her for an in-depth consultation and since my aura was so unique, she wouldn't even charge me!  V pushed her out the door and I quickly pushed the button to take us to our final destination.

Dinner was unusally quiet.  There was no witty banter, no sarcasms about our favorite topic - stupid people... just... nothing.  It was an uneventful dinner where the only conversations taking place was completed with gestures and eye contact.  Finally V broke the silence and asked if I was going to see her.  I told V I already chucked the card, so no.  He seemed shocked that I didn't want to learn more about my aura.  I told him it was like opening Pandora's Box and right now I am not curious enough to handle the truth.  Besides, that lady's energy gave me the heeby jeebies and I wouldn't be caught dead alone with her in a room by myself.  She probably would keep me trapped somewhere and use my body parts for potions or something.

V walked me to my room like he normally does and before we said our customary goodnights, he blurted out in a drunken slur, "You know what was so weird?  On the surveillance tapes your face kept going in and out of focus when you were raging mad and freaking on that perp.  At first we thought it might have been a dust mark but then the cops realized you moved so it wasn't a static thing on the lens.  I didn't think much about it until that crazy lady asked if you surged electronics..."

Uuuuuuuuuuggggggghhh!  I am not having this conversation.  It's past midnight.  My brain is marinated in fermented wheat and my heart is shot from all the adrenaline rush.  I rudely walked past V, slammed the door on him and fell face first into my "comfort" pillow where I happily stayed until noon the next day.

The Man "Upstairs"

I grew up in a Fourplex in Richmond and shared many happy memories with our neighbors the Azures.  They lived directly above us and the common door that separated the two rental suites was often left open so the herd of six children had easy access to whatever toy, playmate, food or parental mentor they wanted.  I often played with Aliea, my brother would stir up shit with Bobby and Stephanie would be creating bad messes around the house with Merissa. 

Our typical day on the weekend would start with one of us yelling "Knock, Knock!" at the actual door that separates the units as a courtesy to let the actual inhabitants know we were invading their territory.  It was usually the babies in the family (Stephanie or Merissa) since they were the first up so the first looking for something to do.  When the afternoon rolled around I would go upstairs and see if I could get someone engaged in a card game.  Lairay and Bob would often be out in the yard, fixing a bike or building forts.  Anytime it was close to meal time, all six kids would check out the offerings of both household and strategize how we were going to fill our tummy.  Would I eat dinner downstairs but have my desserts upstairs?  Or would I secretly eat dinner upstairs and fake I don't feel well to avoid eating whatever my mom prepared downstairs?  Near the end of the day, we would all pile in one of the living rooms, claim some piece of upholstery or floor and settle down to a movie selection.  Our parents had a really hard time sending all 6 kids to bed on time and getting our homework finished.

Let's just say it was really rare that our home was EVER empty.  However, there was the odd time when the Azures left their home base and because of our tight relationship we knew for a fact that NO ONE was home upstairs.  That's when we heard noises from the upstairs suite.  Most of the time it was footsteps.  It would start from the front of the house and trek towards the kitchen.  They were always heavy footed and always the same path.  Sometimes we just heard banging in the kitchen.  The first time this happened its scared the crap out of all us Nguyen kids. 

Joyce's boyfriend at the time, Garry is a self proclaimed intuitive.  He claims that he has a knack for picking up "residual energy" and is able to read if they were harmless or malevolent.  When we reported this to Garry he nonchalantly said, "Oh, it's just the old guy that used to live here.  Don't worry, he's harmless."  R-i-g-h-t.  Obviously I never took his word for it so I told my parents.  They too annoyingly mimiced Garry's apathetic reaction.  My dad, not knowing that Garry identified the "ghost" as "an old man" blurted out, "It's okay, he's not going to come down here.  He only lives upstairs."  Wow...

I was 13 at the time.  The only ghost I considered friendly was Casper.  The re-assurance from both sets of parents was mildly insane to me.  So, let's get this right.  When everyone leaves upstairs, there is a lonely old man that I can't see but can hear walking around bored and you're trying to convince me that he won't come downstairs because why?  How is it the adults are not unnerved at the 11th person inhabiting the Nguyen/Azure dwelling?

Strangely, we all grew accustomed to the walking footprints.  As I got older, I had earned enough trust to babysit all the kids while the parents were out.  That's when this story gets weirder.  Almost everytime I was babysitting the kids during the evening, there was some kind of active paranormal activity - mostly objects falling and even breaking depending on the impact.  Being the responsible babysitter, I always reported this and the parent's always questioned if we were rough housing - they never believed it when I blamed the busted items on the resident "ghost."

That all changed around Christmas.  The Azures had set their Christmas tree up in front of their living room window.  It was a typical tree with a typical amount of ornaments.  After setting it up, it fell down a couple hours later. No big deal.  They re-setted their tree and to ensure it didn't topple again, the base was weighted with rocks and water and the top was tightly tied to a ceiling hook.  That baby wasn't moving even if all of us 6 kids tackled it.  Later that evening, we heard this huge crash that caused everyone downstairs to go running upstairs.  Now the layout of the Azure's home was an average rectangle.  The front of the house was the living room and dining room and a wall separated the kitchen which was located at the back of the house.  When I ran upstairs the tree looked like someone threw it against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living/dining room.  Just so you know, that distance was approximately 30 feet.  There was so much force that we found busted ornaments into the kitchen!

My dad was shocked.  Garry was quiet.  The moms gathered the kids out of the way so we wouldn't cut ourselves with all the broken glass.  Garry and my dad went to the front of the house where the tree once stood and just stared at the empty spot.  Now being 14, I already knew from my rudimentry understanding of physics that a 6 foot tree could not have fallen down with that much force - it seemed illogical and unnatural.  First of all, the flooring was carpet so that should have insulated the fall.  Secondly, the tree was some how 30 feet away from it's orginal position.  Lastly, it was tied up and weighted down.

I can hear Garry and my dad whispering.  In his broken English, he told Garry that the man was mad and maybe he should not set-up a tree.  Garry nodded in agreement.  We were all sent to bed while the adults cleaned up the war zone.  I didn't sleep well that night.  My dad's words kept echoing in my dreams and the man finally appeared to me.

In the morning, I was the first to scream "Knock, Knock!"  I was given the okay to come in and I rushed straight to Garry.  Breathlessly I told him I had a dream that I looked into the window of his house from the street and I saw an old white guy with long white hair sitting in the window in a chair looking back at me.  Garry smiled and said, "Well yes, that's why he's so mad we put our Christmas tree in his spot."

Apparently our resident ghost was not as friendly as Casper - especially around Christmas time.  The tree was re-located to the back of the house and it never fell again.  However, anytime something broke on my babysitting shifts, Garry and Joyce never accused us kids again of rough housing.

Ummm... Didn't You Get The Memo?

As mentioned in my previous posts, I have been graced with the honor of meeting and observing a Cree medicine man who demonstrated a high level of healing abilities.  Henry Ross has claimed to heal patients with modern dieseases that have eluded doctors such as cancer and AIDS.  In accordance with Native healing once you have been treated, these diseases never return unless you chose to return to the lifestyle that created this disease to begin with.  For example, if you were doctored for AIDS and were successfully treated there is no reason for the disease to return unless you decided to go back to your old lifestyle of abusing your body by injecting yourself with dirty needles.

I guess Henry was as intrigued with me as I was with him.  I obviously caught his attention by all the extra "energy" I was emitting (or sucking up... I couldn't tell).  After all the drama with the crow that was following me, the sweat ceremony and the freaky little drummer boy that was sent to the house in the middle of the night, I finally wore him down and he granted me my wish to see him doctor someone.  Of course, there were preliminary rules laid out so I wouldn't upset the natural balance of things.  First thing, I was not allowed to ask questions or engage in conversation.  Essentially I had to shut up during the whole session - anyone that remotely even knows me should already know that this is an almost an impossible task.  Secondly, I had to sit in the far corner of the room and remain respectfully in my seat - so I couldn't hover above the patient and bore my eyes into his/her soul.  Thirdly, I was not allowed to record any of this with a camera or video cam - so this is probably why you will never see a You Tube video posted of such extraordinary events.  Lastly, I had to ask my extra friends hanging out with me to leave.  Pardon me?  That's right, you read correctly.  Henry had requested that my invisible friends needed to momentarily leave me.

I was stunned.  I had "invisible friends"?  Yes, apparently a whole entourage of them.  Henry wasn't able to pick out specifics but he was able to tell me I had at least three of them and the only one that was consistently with me and demonstrated the greatest amount of energy had a female energy about her.  Wow... and this summer just gets stranger and stranger.  How does one go about telling their friends whom you can't see to butt out without hurting their invisible feelings?  Hmmmm... perhaps through a memo?

Dear Invisible Peeps Hovering Above Me,

Today at 12:10PM I will be attending a healing session and your presence is respectfully declined at this engagement.  You may resume your usual hovering and energy emitting activities after the patient has been miraculously cured of whatever ailment that has befuddled the mighty White Doctors.  If you don't agree to these terms, please be advised that your extraterrestial energy may jeopardize a humble Native man's attempt to save a life.

Kindest Regards,
Your Human That Can't See You

Well apparently all I had to do was clear my mind, create a safe place in my mind for my "peeps" to appear and let them know why they needed to just leave me momentarily.  R-i-g-h-t... Again, I was wondering if Henry was smoking the sage grass instead of sacredly burning it.  Okay I suppose I can do this.  So I did sit quietly and sort of meditated - I really don't know how to quiet my mind - but I did visualize a place.  It sort of looked like a nice clearing in a green meadow with a babbling brook and the sun is glistening off the dew drops (if this sounds familiar it's because I ripped the image off of Ferngully the cartoon movie).  I never really "saw" anyone appeared although I think I did conjure up some fairies dancing around.  Anyways I could tell Henry was getting impatient with me and my images of fairies dancing about in my meadows so I told him I was ready even though I really wasn't.

I uneasily sat in the chair in the corner as instructed.  Joyce was also in the room to assist Henry with the doctoring. A Metis girl in her twenties who was accompanied by her mom, hobbled in on crutches.  Prior to the patient's arrival, Henry had already cleansed the space by burning sage grass.  The pale looking girl lifted her leg and revealed a calf that was so swollen that it was the same size as her thigh!  I quickly covered my mouth so that my gasp of horror was not heard.  Henry took out his eagle bone and started blowing through it.  When he does this, colors and shapes appear on the patient which reveals to Henry why the patient is not well.  Usually the inflamed organ will appear brighter in color to him then the rest of the body.  In this case, he was able to spot a clot in the main artery.  He started talking to Joyce in a really low inaudible tone and all I see is Joyce taking some herbs from a drawer and handing Henry a very large knife.  From my angle I can see a blade on it that looked like about nine inches long.  He started chanting and then took the knife to slice into her swollen calf!  My mouth was still stifled by my hand but now my eyes were bulging out of my sockets.  The pale girl did not even wince or scream.  It was like there was no pain at all.  He then took his eagle bone and sucked on the open wound.  I didn't see much at this point but I did hear a "p-tink" when he spat whatever he sucked out into the albalone shell.  He then quickly puts some herbs into the open wound and placed his hand over it while chanting a prayer.  Unbelievably the wound sealed into a neat line leaving only a straight thin scar upon the removal of his hand.  From start to end, the whole procedure took about 15 minutes.  Every second of those 15 minutes was an assault on my senses and my belief system.  The patient appeared to be in a trance and her mom had to assist her up.  Henry gave her some instructions for after care and the girl that was butchered before my eyes but never made a peep finally left.

Henry asked me to leave the room and I was left all alone with my overwhelming images burnt into my brain.  Nothing scientifically could explain what I just witnessed.  Even documenting this transaction of my life seems like perfect evidence that I should be committed to the Looney Bin.  Henry finally comes out from the room.  He looks at me, smiles and then tells me that it was a good thing I did a lousy job of following his 4th request.  Apparently the "female" energy decided to help Henry heal and if it wasn't for her assistance he wouldn't have been able to successfully treat his patient.  This was one of those very rare moments in life where I was silent... speechless in fact.

What's The Probability?

I find myself at yet another crossroad in my life.  This one is complicated in that family is involved so whatever decision I make will have a ripple effect either positively or negatively onto them.  Unfortunately I no longer live a life where my decisions are my consequences alone.  When I am in these situations, I weigh everything logically.  Sometimes I drag out my giant pad and I try to see if mathematically the numbers prove if a situation is feasible.  Sometimes I sit on my computer and Google to death whatever I am seeking hoping to connect somewhere between space, time and strangers.  Sometimes I force my husband to listen to all my neurotic ramblings and because he isn't caught up in the emotions he is able to summarize only the details that count.  Sometimes I gather my girlfriends or my best friend (my sister) and we maul over EVERYTHING with a glass of wine in hand.  As a last resort, sometimes I ask for some help from my team "upstairs".

Well, this is one of those situations.  Three nights ago I sent out a silent prayer for a sign as to what direction I should take.  I know in my previous prayers they have always been answered.  No one believes me when I tell them this but this is true.

Back in University I was failing most courses requiring numbers miserably.  As economics, calculus, finance, statistics and accounting were core courses for my Business Degree I had to pass with at least a C- to graduate.   I struggled through everthing but the one course that killed me was my fourth year statistics class.  I failed it once already so on my second round I finally got this tutor to help me.  He was actually a Stats professor from Douglas College and was very good at teaching "challenged" students such as me.  He saw me struggle everyday but like a stubborn dog I kept at it, making progress but never enough to get me the C- I needed.  He felt bad for me and unlike his other students that he tutored, he confessed that I was the ONLY one that never asked him to cheat for them!  Apparently he had the reputation that if you showed him enough money he would do all your assignments and projects for you.  I thought his high hourly rate reflected that he was just a good tutor but I never realized it was because it was a premium "cheat" rate.  Even though I studied everyday, my overall mark was just a pathetic C- and I needed at least a B on my final to pass.  My entire life I had excelled and the thought of dropping out of the Business Faculty made me so nauseous that I couldn't sleep.  As a last resort, for two nights prior to my final exam I prayed for a miracle.  The night before my tutor gave me a mock exam to test my readiness and I bombed it.  I cried.  He was so overwhelmed with my emotion that he left me by myself just sobbing loudly for what felt like forever.  Finally he returned.  This time however, he came back with a miracle.

The year prior, one of the students actually broke into his Professor's office, stole the final exam for this exact stats class and brought it back to my tutor to work out all the answers.  Coincidentally, the stolen exam was written by my Professor so the probability that he would use it again was pretty good.  I stared at disbelief at my tutor's offer.  He told me he normally charges thousands of dollars for this but because he had a soft spot for me this was a gift from him and more importantly he would work through it with me to solve everything correctly.
I remembered driving home and reviewing in my head what my tutor instructed.  If by chance my Professor actually used this exam I was to purposely get 10-12 wrong so it wouldn't look like I blatantly cheated.  The entire time I was driving my hand was trembling on the steering wheel and I kept thinking I was going to crash because of my incredible luck.  No way in effin hell was this happening right?  I stayed up the rest of the night going over the exam because I knew that even though I didn't understand it, I can memorize it to verbatim.  I went to bed and asked my team upstairs for a miracle.

The next morning I was given the final exam.  This was THE exam that would determine if my degree was to be in Business or in Geography.  I turned the cover page... and almost peed my pants.  According to my tutor, statistically my Professor would recycle his exams every 1/10 of a semester which meant there was a 10% chance I would get THE exam.  Well here it was, sitting on my desk laid out in the exact same order that I had practiced the night before.  I wanted to puke.  I checked to see if anyone else can see I was sweating bullets or hear my heart pounding.  I even pinched myself several times to see if I was dreaming.  As planned, I got a perfect B on my exam and graduated with a degree in Business Administration.

That day, I became a believer that I had a team "upstairs."  I am a self conscious student always practicing my mindfulness that I am on the path I had set out.  I watch for signs, try to read what the greater Universe is sending me and chess play according to that. 

Three days ago I had ask for help again.  The last two days I have been seeing a higher than normal amount of large birds following me.  Like 3 hawks and 3 eagles to be exact.  I don't know what that means but I have a gut feeling it's a message to the questions I am asking. 

Treating A Pounding Headache

It is said the survival of a society is dependent on the strength of it's culture.  How successful these cultural weapons are against inevitable adversities is gauged against how the society has adapted in ones ever dynamic environment.  As science discovers cures for illnesses, our environment mutates and presents new ones that pushes the boundaries of our logical mind thus presenting us with the juxtaposition of testing our faith.  This is the core of humanity.

Henry Ross is an average looking Cree man.  Slight in physical appearance he wears the experiences of his life heavily in his eyes.  His eyes are what distinguishes him that is no ordinary man.  In the modern world of medicine he has acquired the skill set of a surgeon.  What differentiates him is that he acquired his knowledge through many personal fastings where the Spirits teach him how to harness the power of plants (an herbalist), how to detect the source of the ailment and finally how to re-direct positive energy in order to holistically heal all three levels of the human - mind, body and soul.

A week after the sweat ceremony Henry finally returned back to his home base.  I had been on edge the entire time trying to figure out what the hell I had experienced and Joyce made the wise decision to not jump to conclusions by debating with me on what unfolded.  That night Steph and the Azure girls, Aliea and Merissa decided it would be fun to sleep in a tent in the back yard since it was 35 degrees out and the house felt like an oven.  Knowing full well that the national Saskatchewan bird population (AKA mosquitos) were going to eat me alive, I opted to stay indoors and take my chances sweating to death. 

Sometime around 3AM that night I woke up in the dead of my sleep.  Bob was still up watching the movie so when I sat straight up from what looked like a deep sleep, I startled him.  "You okay?" he asked.  "Where's Steph?" I frantically shrieked.  At first I thought something was wrong with my heart because I can hear it pounding.  As I got orientated to my surroundings I realized that I can hear Joyce's voice in Henry's bedroom which was right beside the room I was sleeping in.  Well that's odd.  Suddenly both Joyce and Henry went outside and herded all three girls back into the house.  I asked Joyce what was wrong and she just blurted out that the girls were being too loud.  Tired, I fell back alseep but only after the pounding headache faded.  I didn't sleep well that night.

I woke up sore and with a really massive headache.  Joyce poured me a coffee at breakfast and started to study me.  "You look like you had a rough night?  Did you stay up all night too?"  Bob told his mom I woke up in the dead of my sleep and scared the shit out of him because I sat up like a bat out of hell.  "When did you wake up?"  she asked.  "I dunno, just before you made the girls come in from their camping out session."

Henry looks up from his crossword puzzle.  I was so crabby and tired I didn't even noticed that he was standing at the kitchen counter.  "The girls were pretty loud, did they wake you up?" he asked.  "No, I woke up because my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it," I blurted out.  When the words left my mouth I realized how insane I sounded.   Joyce shot a look to Henry and then let out a huge sigh.  "Oh..." 
The man that has said no more than 3 sentences to me over the last 2 weeks all of a sudden started talking.

Apparently Henry started to hear owls hooting around 1AM outside which he thought was odd.  He came outside to investigate and noticed not one owl but a bunch of them roosting on the roof of the house.  Owls in the Cree culture are bad omens.  They are messengers that something not very good was going to unfold.  He then heard the sounds of drums and they were getting louder which meant that they were coming closer.  Joyce woke up too around the same time I did and immediately went to see Henry because she knew something was wrong.  That's when they quickly grabbed the girls and brought them back in.  Henry wasn't sure what exactly was happening but he knew something was definitely wrong so he quickly performed a protective prayer encircling the home with light.  The owls quickly left and the drums came close to the house but never encircled it.

Now, when I haven't had my morning coffee I am bitch.  Compound that with a lack of sleep and what you have is an UBER bitch with absolutely no filter.  "Are you fucking kidding me?"  I respectfully asked.  The information overload on an unstable system was a bit too much.  To stop my hysteria, Henry continued talking.

He tells me I carry exceptional energy for someone so young.  Since he seemed to be in the mood for talking I thought it was an opportune moment for me to ask if he happened to see a random Demon thingy hanging out.  Henry says all my energy is light, there is no darkness to it.  I share the story of my dad's "gift" to me when I was born.  Henry laughs.  He tells me that I have such a huge energy source that it would be difficult for darkness to challenge it.   I then ask why he mentioned he saw a Crow hanging out.  Henry says the Crow may just be curious as they are attracted to strange light.  He mentions that in the Sweat, my energy threw off his healing abilities so it made the heat more intense then usual.  He also mentions that I have an army of Spirits taking care of me and my gift is being highly intuitive so that's why I sensed things people normally wouldn't.  My eyes bulge out of my head.  Henry tells me not to worry and I won't see things I am not ready for.  I am not convinced.  Images of an evil drummer boy is burned into my retina. 

Joyce mentions that last night's incident was a result of "Bad Medicine."  For some reason I had a feeling she wasn't talking about taking prescription drugs and chasing it with some hard liquor. 

Always Pee Before Going On Long Car Rides

The sweat ceremony is one of the most powerful and sacred spiritual tools for the Cree culture.  Older than recorded time, this holy ceremony is to used to cleanse the mind, body and soul by calling upon Nature's elements of Earth, Fire, Water and Air.  Conducted by Elders who have be blessed with the ability to communicate with the Spiritual World, these ceremonies connect the participants with Creator (God), the Spirit Helpers (comparable to the angels and others depending on your spiritual or religious practices) and our ancestors (our grandmothers and grandfathers and all the generations who came before us).  There are many reasons for attending but all have the unifying purpose of lifting the veil on the world that we walk in order to reveal and understand the truths.  Obviously this journey is one that cannot be taken casually as it is often transformational. 

As mentioned before, my understanding of anything Sacred is pretty embarrassing.  All my knowledge is garnered by TV and I'm not even talking about the good kind.  I'm talking about highly educated cinematography such as "The Exorcist," and "The Shining."  My parent's are Bhuddists but no longer practicing ones since emigrating to the land of The Free Will and Modern.  That being said, I have a high level of respect for Faith even though ironically I personally don't have a "conventional" one.

Knowing this, Joyce went through the teachings to ensure that my first experience with her culture was an "awakening" and also as an insurance that my ignorance (AKA inside voice) didn't disrepect such a powerful ceremony.  She went on to explain that the Lodge is built to symbolize the Womb of Mother Earth.  There is a separate ceremony where the Elder would choose very specific rocks that are strategically placed in the center of the lodge.  These rocks are the Grandfathers Spirits as they have been on this Earth since the beginning of time and are selected to ensure they can carry enough healing properties from a fire to create the "sauna" feel.  Chosen correctly, the rocks will not crack when cold water is poured over it.

In Cree culture, women are very powerful Spirits as proven by the fact that most of their theology is based on the maternal spirit of Mother Earth.  A woman on her "moon" cannot attend a sweat ceremony because she becomes extremely powerful during this time thus disrupting the energies that need to be redirected for healing purposes.  Women need to traditionally wear long skirts and a modest top and the men usually wore tunics and pants.  Practicalities such as bringing a towel, a bottle of water, eating a light meal 3-4 hours before, emptying your bladder and removing any metal from your skin was also reccommended.  Also, any religious artifacts from other cultures needed to respectfully be removed.

Being a medicine man, Henry was a rare elder in that in addition to the other ceremonies he was able to also conduct healing ceremonies.  As his assistant, Joyce's role was to ensure the food for the feast afterwards was prepared, donations such as blankets, tobbacco, sage and food were collected and organized for re-distribution if there was an abundance.  This required Joyce to arrive at the site about an hour before the time to prepare. 

Now Joyce is like my second mom so she would never put myself or Steph in any danger.  "Pure" spirits are those people that have lived a good, honest life without much negativity.  Being that Steph and I were quite young and very happy go lucky without a care in the world, she knew that we would not be bothered by the heat of the ceremony.  Now, if you were a person that required healing emotionally, spiritually or physically then the heat of the ceremony would really affect you as the energies of the Universe work to "purge" or cleanse your negatives energies.  If there was a participant that was heavily disrupted in their energies, such as a person that was a sexual abuser asking for forgiveness or a person that was infected by AIDS because of the lifestyle they chose then the heat of the ceremony would be unbearable not only for that person but for all that was sharing it. 

The ceremony we were attending was for an ill man who had cancer but not due to his life choices.  From her experience Joyce knew that this type of healing ceremony typically would not bother the "pure" spirits as the other Elders would do most of the heavy lifting in taking the heat.  She equated the educational experience like sitting in a hot sauna.   

I remembered driving in Joyce's humble car on a very rural dirt road to what seemed like in the middle of nowhere for hours.  The weather was miserable.  There were dark clouds, the winds were viciously whipping and the rain was pounding the poor little car.  I was intrigued how a sweat ceremony would be conducted in such awful weather and even chuckled to myself as I was imagining the winds blowing over what I envisioned was a grass hut.  My charming sarcastic inside voice inevitably escaped, "Maybe the Gods did not get the memo we were suppose heal a man today."  Joyce ignored my tone and continued to focus on the road as the visibility was increasingly getting worse.

Finally I saw a homestead off in the distance.  Remember, this is Saskatchewan so even though you see the building doesn't mean it's close by.  I mean, by now I'm sure you have heard of the joke, "How do you know you're in Saskatchewan?  Because you can watch your dog run away for days."   Ya, well it's true.  So my enthusiasm quickly waned when I realized it was more like 30 minutes aways versus 5 minutes.  At that moment, the most bizarre weather phenomenon unfolded.  Like a perfect movie scene, there was a small sliver of sun breaking over the homestead while everything else continued to be drenched in this torrential down pour.  Steph and I shared a look of "WTF?"  Joyce smiled and gently whispered, "Well, I guess Henry had no choice but to part the clouds..."

Nothing would have ever prepared me for that humble comment.  Seriously?  Part the clouds?  Like Rainmaker style?  Who says this shit anyways?  Steph's eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her round head and my brain started racing a million miles an hour trying to attach some type of scientifical answer to it all.  Apparently this healing ceremony required the energy of the Sun so logically one would just call up the Big Guy Upstairs there and put in your order.  "Oh hi Henry!  Of course you needed the Sun... my bad, here you go."  I must have missed that chapter in Geography class.  Note to Self: Western public education is a waste of my time.

As we pulled up the entire weather system seemed to have passed over.  The sun was definitely out and the angry black clouds turned wispy white revealing the intense indigo sky.  The Cree folks looked curiously at Steph and I trying to figure out what kind of weird-ass Native breed were we.  Joyce politely introduced us as her Vietnamese daughters which I think a collective "Aaaaaaahhh" was released when they finally figured out that we were "China Men" (as one polite Elder mentioned) and not a bizarre hybrid.  Hmmmm... don't get out much on this side of the world heh?

Henry summoned to Joyce and soon we were ushered into the Sacred Lodge.  Henry started his chanting and quiet prayers while I tried to keep my eyes wide open trying to not miss a thing.  The heat from the water poured over the rocks obviously made everything really difficult to see as there was no light except for a few cracks in which the sun poured through.  There were about a dozen people, both men and women and then us random Vietnamese rift raft.  The first 20 minutes were pretty therapeautic and Joyce was right about the heat feeling as soothing as a sauna.  In fact I was so relaxed between the darkness, the warmth of the heat, humidity and the rhythmic chanting that I almost fell asleep. 

Well... until that bizarre arctic gush of air that hit my lungs like a stabbing icicle came.  It caught me so off gaurd that I think I had to steady myself from falling over.  I quickly looked over to Steph but she just looked at peace with her eyes closed... like a perfect Bhudda statue.  Joyce warned me to quiet the mind, to not talk and to just listen with my soul.  I resisted the urge to ask Steph if she felt that weird gush so I resumed my "meditative" state.  Again my thoughts were clouded and images of a tornado or a hurricane or wild wind filled the void.  It then occurred to me that the heat was increasing in the Lodge.  It was no longer soothing and beads of sweat was dripping off my head.  I took a gulp of water and used my towel to pat my face and then focussed on my breathing as I started to gasp.  This continued for another half hour and then Henry lifted the door signalling the ceremony was over.  I stumbled out into the sun straining for fresh air and trying to adjust to the light.  Steph came trottling out and beamed, "Wow that was so cool!  I didn't even feel hot!"  Her words hit me hard.

Joyce was one of the last ones to leave the Lodge and when she finally came out she looked like she ran a bloody marathon.  She looked older for some reason and absolutely exhausted.  You know that look when a woman gave birth?  Ya, that was her look.  She commented, "That sweat was a lot harder than it should have been."  She quickly ushered us into the small house that was on the land for the feast.  We ate some bannock, some bland soup and some fresh blueberries.  The Elders continued their conversation in Cree.  Joyce was busy assisting Henry so I started to grill Steph on her experience.  She just shrugged it off like it was "spa time."  She enjoyed the experience and the heat never bothered her.  Oh damn... not what I wanted to hear.

Finally we left and on the long car ride home Joyce started talking, but only after Steph fell asleep.  She asked if I was on my "moon."  I was on the pill so my period was scheduled like clockwork.  I knew for a fact that it was 2 weeks away.  She didn't like my answer.  Apparently the ceremony had a disrupted energy as confirmed by Henry and by the fact that the Healing Elders, including Joyce, experienced an abnormal amount of intense heat.  In fact, Henry had to end the ceremony earlier than usual because he was concerned the intensity would have affected Steph and I.  This only happens when a female's energy was exceptionally powerful meaning she was on her moon or she carried great energy.  Henry told Joyce that he thought the disruption was from me so that's why Joyce immediately assumed I was on my moon and didn't realize it.  I blurted out that my experience was not at all like Steph's.  That I was dying near the end because I was so hot and strange ass visions of a tornado kept popping up.  Oh, and my lungs were filled with really cold air in the beginning.  There was an awkward moment of silence.

Joyce revealed that one of her Guardian Spirits was a Princess that lived hundreds of years ago and her element was a Tornado.  She apparently was present at this ceremony to help heal the ill man but the fact that I sensed her was extraordinary.  Damn it, I knew I should have peed before I left for the car ride home.