MEDITATION

Meditation provides great benefits to everyone that practices regularly such as, a calm peaceful feeling, relieving stress, increased awareness and gratitude.   I love meditation; it intensifies a line of communication with Spirit.   Meditation improves my ability to hear Spirit and my clarity in spiritual vision.  I meditate daily for this reason.  In all fairness I have received significant benefits from meditation in addition to Spirit communication.   Meditation can be as simple or as complex as you make it.  Initially, you may want to schedule time for meditation as it is important to dedicate time for you.    

You will need to find a quiet area that affords you comfortable seating.   Turn off all technology to avoid being disturbed.   Choose a chair or couch that you can comfortably sit on with your feet on the floor. 

Step One:  Close your eyes.  Take seven deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.  Utilize slow steady breathing. Focus only on your breath.  If your mind starts to wander bring its attention back to your breathing. 

Step Two:  Keeping your eyes closed; envision a white light illuminating the sky.   Visualize your light.  Is it soft or bright?  Receive this light from God or the Universe.  Visualize your light as it descends from the sky entering the top of your head (your crown chakra).  Imagine the light warming you, watch it slowly spill into your body filling you with love.  View the light as it runs onto the floor and down into the ground below your feet.  Fill the Earth with your loving white light watching as it enters the ground and flows down into Earth. 

Step Three:  From the ground beneath you, imagine a different colored light (avoid black). Run your Earth color up through your feet into your body, filling it with your color.  Feel your Earth color as it soothes your body.  View your Earth color as it exits your crown chakra and meets the sky.   Fill the sky with your Earth color.  Simultaneously run your white light down into the ground and your Earth light up to the heavens through your body.

Step Four:  Visualize a cord.  Give it a color.  This is your grounding cord.  Attach it to your belly button and run it down into the middle of the Earth.  Through this cord you will release all anger, fear or resentment. You will want to eliminate toxic people and situations through your grounding cord. Visualize these problematic people, situations and feelings as you send them out your grounding cord into the middle of the Earth.  Repeat this with any feelings or people that may be blocking your ability to be completely at peace.  

Step Five:  Remove the cord; drop it into the Earth, taking with it all residual misfortune.  Thank the Earth for assisting in your cleansing.  Thank your white light and your Earth color in illuminating your life.  Slowly begin to acknowledge your body, starting at your feet, then your legs, body, arms, head and surroundings.  Open your eyes.  Look around.  You’re safe and sound and on your way to your path to your personal destiny.

MIND.... GET OUT OF MY WAY

Meditation manifests a link between the conscious mind and spiritual soul. When done correctly, meditation creates a calm and peaceful presence in our lives.  Initially, my thought was to blog about the importance of meditation and how it assists in aligning you with your destiny.  Sounds simple, or so I thought. 

In mentioning meditation to my clients, friends and neighbor, I got the “deer in the headlights” look and heard the “I have to learn to quiet my mind first” comment.   Their apprehension which was blatantly apparent mystified me. Enter my super heroes, my spirit guides and sure enough, an epiphany during meditation.   Please “turn off the chachara” (mind chatter).  

  

Mind chatter is a constant play by play regurgitation of past events and their outcome.  These events range from conversations, arguments, disappointments to personal loss.   Mind chatter affords us the ability to produce a variation of the outcome of the original conversation, argumentor situation.  Anxiety of the future also plays a role in mind chatter,as to

how an impending situation will play out.  Mind chatter serves no purpose

other than to build anger, worry and resentment.   Sound familiar? 

If you suffer the turbulent backlash of mind chatter, know there is a remedy.   The way to correct this disruptive behavior is through meditation, with an exorcism.   Hold on; don’t run wildly through your house searching for holy water.  That is not the type of expulsion I am referring to. 

What I am talking about is clearing our minds and purposely releasing mind chatter.  If we embrace meditation as a means to simplifying our lives, we will experience a healing.  Doing a “simple” three step meditation practice (next blog) that eradicates mind chatter is paramount to happiness.  That is not to say that you will rid yourself of the memory completely, but the way you view it will change.  The advantage is that you will feel the change almost immediately. I know this because I suffered from constant mind chatter, which I have now eliminated.  I accomplished that through meditation.  The transformation is incredible.   Please trust me when I say, meditate, meditate, meditate as it will provide healing and growth.    Meditation will grant you freedom from exhaustive mind chatter.  Meditation will graciously give you the gift of peace of mind and soul which is a necessity to obtain your destiny. 

DESTINY'S SOUL

DESTINY'S SOUL

Whether we talk about Albert Einstein, Dr. Balogun (university professor), my Compadre or movie character Nicolas Sparks, we find they have a specific common factor that they agree upon.  What is it that they are in agreement with?  Destiny exists!

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control.  It is determined for the insect, as well as for the stars, human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” Albert Einstein

“Destiny or predestination is the belief that every person has his biography written before coming to the world which consequently implies that anything one does is not something done out of free will but something done in fulfillment of preordained history.” Dr. Balogun indicates that at the “moment of birth one makes an unconscious choice of destiny.”   “With birth our memories of that choice are “erased” thus making it possible for a person to embark on a project which his Ori did not choose, that is, for which he is not predestined.  Failure is the result of such efforts.” This a study thesis on Ori (soul/personal spirit) that was published in the Nordic Journal of African Studies, by Dr. Oladele Balogun, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria.   

“Ori (soul/head) chooses a destiny within a split second prior to birth.   This choice is quickly forgotten, thus creating the need to seek out our destiny, in order to live an existence of good blessings.”   My cherished Compadre, Ifa Priest Ojuani Pokon.

“There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them.  Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane; sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.” Nicolas Sparks, from the movie, Message in a Bottle

The thing is that we may not know what our destiny is nor may we recognize destiny when we are in its midst.  This is what makes it so difficult to determine what we should be doing to align with and follow our personal path.   One thing is certain, if we are not in alignment and we do not pay attention to the road signs we will soon begin to experience loss, tragedy and suffer a variety of other disappointments.  This by the way, is how we know we are off track, at which point we begin to re-align with our destiny.  Alignment is sacred and vital to one’s peace of mind and happiness.  You are entitled to live a peaceful life and be happy and believe it or not you will align and find your destiny!!!

A LESSON OF PURPOSE

As the years passed, I became involved in typical teenage issues.   I maintained my Christian upbringing, taking a “sabbatical” from my spirit playmates.  I became a member at University Baptist Church, “accepted Jesus” and was baptized.  Thank you, Pastor Yeary.   I lead a Christian existence.   But, I was always drawn back to the mystical side of life.  There was a strong connection that was undeniable.   I felt a curiosity that bound me to what most would describe as a belief system that lives on the outskirts of acceptable society.  For me, it was as natural as breathing.

I worked for a hospital for years.  During a conversation with a VP, I mentioned that “I had a purpose and was here for a special reason.”  There is no doubt in my mind that he thought I was senseless.   It didn’t matter; I knew in my heart that theory was correct. 

As a Christian, I felt compelled to steer away from my profound spiritual beliefs.  My destiny called to me.  It attracted me back to a place of comfort, providing a sense of belonging, a feeling of familiarity where immediately, my soul felt vindicated.  For the first time, I knew I was heading in the proper direction.

For some, Destiny is a given.  It is just that simple.  These folks are recognized for their cheerful nature, charisma, ambition, enthusiasm and likability; the list could go on and on.  They are on-track from an early age.  They are in the right place at the right time, never missing a beat, making correct decisions assuring a smooth journey.  The on-tracks are admired for their “luck” and how easily they connect the dots.   We share some of the same distinctive personality traits as the on-tracks, but somehow we are on the wrong path.  At times it may seem we are running around in the jungle nude and on fire and there is no path to be found.

For most us destiny and purpose are elusive.  We question, search and pray to find destiny.  We aspire to live on purpose.  At times we are not sure what our purpose is, let alone find our destiny, thus complicating things even more. 

On-tracks live on purpose and have old souls that have evolved or reincarnated several times.  They left behind the need for a practice run.  Make no mistakes, on-tracks listen to divine guidance and follow direction. 

My compass was broken.  Purpose escaped me.  Destiny battered my sails.  My spirit guides spoke to me repeatedly trying to get my attention.  They yelled, danced, jumped up and down.  Somewhere between the dancing, yelling and jumping, I slid head first into a huge disaster.  They now have my full undivided attention!  Believe me, it is less painful and much more pleasant, if we quietly listen as our spirit guides teach us.  As simple as that sounds, sometimes we just miss the message.  If we listen, spirit will provide divine intervention and place us on the path to our own personal destiny.  

THREADS THAT BIND DESTINY

Cards and Fortunes

My family spent summer vacations in Georgia visiting my mother's cousin and my Grandmother.   We stayed at my Grandmother’s home while visiting.  My Grandmother was a kind soft spoken woman that I loved.  She could tell your fortune with deck of playing cards.   I deliberated long and hard as to how she was able to foresee the future in red and black diamonds, clubs, spades and hearts.   I always came back to the same conclusion; she must know something the rest of us didn’t.   But, what? 

Cards and Tea

Cousin was an eccentric well-known medium.  Similar to my Grandmother, he read playing cards. For those of you that I read for, it is just you, me and Spirit. No playing cards for me. During our vacation, he gave my Mother the skeptic, a reading via tea leaves. She was still a non-believer. People came from all over for readings with Cousin.  Mostly everyone, with the exception of his clientele, thought he was CRAZY.  Looking at his artwork that spills out of his home and embraces the surrounding walls to his property, would lead even the most open minded of us to take note.  There are many stories about him.  The most remarkable one is of a reporter that wrote an article about him, his beliefs and his art.  He told the reporter that people judged him and laughed at him behind his back but not to be mistaken, he would “have followers after his death.”  Did the cards or my Mother's tea leaves tell him that? 

Cousin made me beads for my protection.   I never really wore them and he knew it!    He and I had a bond; to me it was just a cousin thing, but it was much more than that.  It was a bond that would not be broken through the years, over great distance or even death.   Unfortunately, while he was alive, I was too young to understand that he was a gift.   His death was sadly tragic and untimely.  Interestingly enough, he was correct, he has followers.  Today, Cousin boast of his own web page, his art tours the US, has a street named after him and his home is open for tours.  Even though he is extremely busy, he is my spirit guide and I am his student.  I love him with all of his quirky eccentricity.  Some things just don’t change, not even after death.

    

Thread That Binds US


Looking back I see Ann Marie and playtime, Tigger my greatest compass, Danda, the old lady, my Grandmother with her playing cards and cousin my spirit guide with his turban and skirt, oh I forgot to mention the skirt, huh? (picture below) Like I said before, not even death changes some things, like skirts.  Keeping in mind that death does not change things including your clothing, I recommend you wear clothes you really like.  Regardless, in a very unique way everything in my life was connecting or seemed to share a common thread that was guiding me, propelling me to find my path.  And find it, I did!!!!

   

    

THE SPIRITS I WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN

The Old Lady

Tigger and I played after school and on weekends.  While at Tiggers, I saw the old lady.  She seemed to spend most of her time in the back dinning/family room.  I would see her pass by the door that led to the rest of the house.  She never crossed the threshold, never spoke to anyone and carried on as though we weren’t there.  She always wore the same black dress and shoes.  None of Tigger’s family members claimed to know her.  Tigger indicated that I was seeing the old lady that lived at her house.   I guess we were the intruders.  Regardless, I felt comfortable in her presence.  I just saw my first spirit, my first of many to come. 

Danda

Danda (my grandfather) was eighty eight and blind when I was born.  He lived with us until his health declined, at which point he spent holidays and some weekends with us.  I rarely saw him but I knew he loved me!  I enjoyed watching television with him.  The fact he was blind never interfered with us watching tv together.  Danda passed away when I was ten.  One weekend while watching television, I felt an energy that filled the room.  Upon looking towards the opposite sofa, there sat Danda.  He looked the same.  He was wearing his red flannel shirt.  This was somewhat overwhelming and scary to me.  There was no doubt in my mind he was dead.  I tried to get up and run but I felt something holding me back.  I was unable to move.  My body was thrust forward once he disappeared.  And then…..I ran!

Different Never to be the Same

On occasion I would see the old lady.  She was somewhat like the others that lived at Tiggers, with the exception that she didn’t interact with anyone.  Danda, now that was a different story.  I have never seen him again.  Somewhere after this time, things changed for me.  I no longer saw spirits as I saw the old lady and Danda.  I began to see them in a much different manner!

DINNER, GHOSTS AND THE HEAD

Sunday Dinner

Tigger’s mother (Mima) was a great cook.  I have very fond memories of arroz con pollo and platanitos maduro .   This is still my favorite comfort food.   I soon realized if I wanted to eat at Tiggers on Sunday, I most definitely needed to manage my learning skills as it pertained to speaking Spanish.   Immediately after Tigger's family moved in to the home across the street, I came to the realization that “Americana” was my new nickname.  Or at least the name I was given at Tigger’s house.   “Quieres comer?”  Now we are talking.   I was about to feast on the most delectable meal around.   Now speaking Spanish was paramount to my happy tummy and vital for the many things that were yet to come. 

Ghosts

Ghost stories were rampant at Tigger’s.  We would tell the usual scary stories.    Tigger always had a new story about an old lady that lived with them at their home.  Was the old lady part of the family? Had she moved in with them?  Where did she sleep?  I had yet to see her but Tigger swore she lived there.  I guessed I would meet her soon.  And so I did!

Beads and the Stone

Tigger’s home was decorated differently, smelled enticingly delicious and even the music was something I had never experienced.   She had “strange stuff” at her house.   Nothing I had ever seen before.  However, I found all of these differences mysteriously familiar.   Mima wore multi-colored beads that looked different than hippie beads.  These were not made of wood nor did they have a peace sign hanging from them.  I was oddly attracted to their unique beauty. 

Inside of an octagonal end table lived a stone head that you could see only when the table doors were open.   The head had what looked like eyes, a nose and a mouth made from……….shells?  It had a feather sticking out of the top of the head.  Was it a bird?  I had a parakeet at home but our bird looked nothing like this little guy.  Besides, the head drank coffee and smoked cigars.  

Odd? Yes!  Scary? No.  Strangely, I felt a bond that attracted me to these cultural differences.  Without realizing it, I was on the road to my destiny.  

AND SO IT BEGINS !! PSYCHIC BY DESTINY

Religious by Choice, Psychic by Destiny

I am sharing the below childhood information as a reference point.  This should assist in better understanding the amazing twists and turns your life makes to put you on your road to discovering your destiny.  You can sight see, take vacations off the beaten path, you can even let others drive your bus as you become the passenger, but you will realign on your road to your destiny.  Sometimes that road is not the easiest or most traveled, but it is your road.   The sooner you get there, the happier you will be!!!!!

I am an only child.  Born and raised in Miami.  My parents were from Georgia and Alabama.   Sunday was made for Sunday School and ice skating classes. Oh yeah and the almighty Burger King Whopper after my class.  Please hold the ketchup, onions and tomatoes.

Spirit Guide # 1 - Ann Marie

"Who are you talking to?"  To which I would always answer, "my friend Ann Marie, we are playing together."  I wondered why my Mom would ask me who I was talking to, when Ann Marie was sitting on the floor next me.  Ann Marie dressed funny but she was my constant playmate. We would laugh and roll around on the floor together.   My Mom most likely thought I made her up but Ann Marie was as real to me, as my Mom and Dad were.  With time Ann Marie stopped coming over to play.   The next time I heard of her, I was much older.   

My Destiny is on the Map,  Helloooooo Tigger !

Winnie the Pooh was my favorite book and cartoon as a child.  All of the characters were lovable.  As an only child, I relied on my friends to play with and enjoy my after school and weekend hours. ( Don't get me wrong, my parents always had a special outing planned each month.)  Ana Marie was no longer available to play so others replaced our play dates.  I find it amazing how children can play even if there are language barriers that impede effective verbal communication.  That is where my best friend "Tigger" comes in.  I was six and she was eight.  She moved into the house across the street.  New friends to play with.  Oh yeah!!!!  Having arrived recently from Cuba we had a language barrier, her English and my Spanish.  Or to better put it, our lack of both.   Meeting my new best friend "Tigger" was the turning point in my life.  I just didn't know it yet.  Our friendship was the best thing that ever happened to me.  "Tigger" put me on the road to my spiritual or my psychic destiny.