| In the Beginning... |
"Confirmations," spiritual messages and how we know they're not just
coincidences...
The Beginning of My Path: One night in 1972, I was feeling extremely agitated. That
was pretty unusual for me, being fairly calm and steady most of the time. I paced back
and forth like a caged lioness for a while. Then, having just begun to practice
meditation with the help of an old book by Harold Sherman, "Helping Yourself With
ESP," I sat down and went through one of his processes to calm myself. The
meditation consisted of walking up ten stairs leaving something negative behind and
picking up something positive in its place. At the top of the stairs is your room of
power, or inner connection. As I reached it, I felt a vibrating energy like the hum of
huge electrical equipment. As instructed, I visualized a blank screen in front of me and
then just watched as images passed of the screen.
As I watched, I became aware that I saw myself going home to visit my mother.
Crossing the rickety old McKinley Bridge from St Louis, Missouri into Venice, Illinois, I
noticed an old dilapidated service station on the left. I remembered Hairston's station,
but why was I seeing it now? It had been torn down many years ago. I was puzzled,
but just filed it away.
A few days later, I got a call that my mother had gone into the hospital with a heart
attack on the very night that I had been so agitated, and it would be a good idea for
me to come home as she was quite ill. My sister, who also lived in Houston, and I
could not afford a plane ticket right then, and trains still had cheaper fares at that
time, so we booked a train the next day. As we made our way homeward, I noticed an
elderly black man in the car with us. He seemed somehow familiar to me, so eventually
we began to talk in the club car. I asked if he was going to St Louis, and he said yes.
I said I was too, but really I was headed for Venice, Illinois. He said what a
coincidence, so was he. And then he said the fateful line that changed my life..."Do
you remember that old service station that used to be on the left side of the bridge as
you get into Venice? I used to own it. My name is Hairston." The hair stood up on my
arms and a shiver moved all the way down through my spine to my toes, and I knew
that the meditation had been a premonition, and this was a tiny detail known as a
confirmation that kept me from disregarding the whole thing as a coincidence. It was
the first of many such events, and the foreshadowing of a path I never knew I would
tread.
Confirmations... I always thought that good authors invented foreshadowing and
these kinds of synchronistic events to make their stories more interesting. Now I know
that life is full of foreshadowing, synchronicity and serendipity. In fact, life is a sacred
journey full of magic, mystery and wonderful coincidences. And nobody wants to use
the word coincidence any more since James Redfield so aptly pointed out in Celestine
Prophecy that there is purpose and meaning in everything that happens to us, that
synchronicity is a more appropriate word than coincicdence. Confirmations can come
as a shiver down the spine when you recognize the truth of a situation. It can feel like
a light bulb turns on when you hear something that applies. You can receive a
meditation and then have someone outside you tell you the same thing five or six
times in the same day, confirming what you got in meditation. You can have an insight
and then find it described beautifully in a book. Confirmations can come as doors
opening so you can accomplish seemingly impossible goals with ease and flow.
Confirmation can come as the right amount of money showing up just when you need
it. Confirmation can come as a song on the radio (cosmic radio) that is the answer to
the question you've been asking. All around us are confirmations that say we're on
the path, and all is well. We have to develop our powers of observation to notice
them, we have to pay attention to life. Through the years, I have often asked if I
would or should take a course of action and had a billboard in front of my face that
gave me the answer like, "The Right Stuff, Right Now." I take that as a positive sign,
and the next day, the pending course of action is confirmed.
When I began my conscious exploration of alternative spiritual paths (formerly a
Baptist Child), I was seeking phenomenal events. I was more interested in being
psychic than being spiritual. It was no accident that one of the first people I
encountered was a Seik who said to me, if you pursue psychic abilities, you will have
them, but you won't necessarily be spiritual. If you pursue spirituality, you will gain all
the powers of the other worlds along the way, and you will use them wisely and in a
spiritual way. My first response was, "I've had enough of religion, I just want to
explore the astral plane, have some out of body experiences and develop my psychic
powers."
Well, I went along my own path, as I should, and as we all should. I learned to
channel, do psychometry, read tarot, take guided meditation trips, and make accurate
psychic predictions, but it didn't solve the other issues in my life. Family issues,
relationship issues, personal emotional issues, issues of financial solvency; all
remained and needed tending. Of course, sometimes I got insight into those issues,
but I also got the challenges that come with traveling this path. People challenging
you to prove you're a psychic, and if you don't want to prove it, you must not be any
good. People judging me from their fears as witch or satanic or controlling others
psychically. Other people wanting to give up their power and let me make major
decisions in their lives. Many other challenges come with this path, but so do many
rewards - a sense of connection, a sense of community, a feeling of having help with
my issues, an intuitive sense of my ability to heal my issues and deal with challenges
appropriately, a sense of wholeness, freedom and joy, self acceptance, personal
power, and a feeling of being "in love" even when I'm working hard on a project or on
myself. A general sense of well-being that comes with the Oneness.
After traveling the psychic path for a while, I came to realize that I didn't want other
people to depend on me for readings. If I could develop this ability, so could others. If
I could learn to listen to my intuition, so could others. And so, I stopped doing
readings, except on extreme need occasions, and began to focus on techniques that
helped others move energy in their own lives. I began to teach. Also, Past Life
Regressions came in handy if people wanted to stop repeating patterns in their lives,
but many people just wanted the entertainment value of a past life reading. For them,
it was like watching a movie, and they were starring. Later, I acquired the skills and
processes of Integration, one of the greatest healing tools I've ever experienced.
Many modalities were combined into a wholistic approach to self actualization. Now, all
the work I do has very individualized processes that move you toward wholeness, joy
and personal fulfillment.
There are always those who want to work their path and others who just want to be
entertained. I try to stay out of judgment about that. However, I always hand back
power that others give me and let them know they have the power to create their own
lives. I'm willing to help anyone who is willing to do their own work, but I'm not willing
to do their spiritual work for them - because I can't, and if I try, I take on a lot of
responsibility for the outcome. I'm willing to teach all explorers on the path what I
have learned, and that's all I am capable of - sharing what I've learned.
Follow your own path, and if your guidance comes into conflict with something
someone tells you, follow your own guidance every time.
Be bold, be brave, be joyful. =0=
coincidences...
The Beginning of My Path: One night in 1972, I was feeling extremely agitated. That
was pretty unusual for me, being fairly calm and steady most of the time. I paced back
and forth like a caged lioness for a while. Then, having just begun to practice
meditation with the help of an old book by Harold Sherman, "Helping Yourself With
ESP," I sat down and went through one of his processes to calm myself. The
meditation consisted of walking up ten stairs leaving something negative behind and
picking up something positive in its place. At the top of the stairs is your room of
power, or inner connection. As I reached it, I felt a vibrating energy like the hum of
huge electrical equipment. As instructed, I visualized a blank screen in front of me and
then just watched as images passed of the screen.
As I watched, I became aware that I saw myself going home to visit my mother.
Crossing the rickety old McKinley Bridge from St Louis, Missouri into Venice, Illinois, I
noticed an old dilapidated service station on the left. I remembered Hairston's station,
but why was I seeing it now? It had been torn down many years ago. I was puzzled,
but just filed it away.
A few days later, I got a call that my mother had gone into the hospital with a heart
attack on the very night that I had been so agitated, and it would be a good idea for
me to come home as she was quite ill. My sister, who also lived in Houston, and I
could not afford a plane ticket right then, and trains still had cheaper fares at that
time, so we booked a train the next day. As we made our way homeward, I noticed an
elderly black man in the car with us. He seemed somehow familiar to me, so eventually
we began to talk in the club car. I asked if he was going to St Louis, and he said yes.
I said I was too, but really I was headed for Venice, Illinois. He said what a
coincidence, so was he. And then he said the fateful line that changed my life..."Do
you remember that old service station that used to be on the left side of the bridge as
you get into Venice? I used to own it. My name is Hairston." The hair stood up on my
arms and a shiver moved all the way down through my spine to my toes, and I knew
that the meditation had been a premonition, and this was a tiny detail known as a
confirmation that kept me from disregarding the whole thing as a coincidence. It was
the first of many such events, and the foreshadowing of a path I never knew I would
tread.
Confirmations... I always thought that good authors invented foreshadowing and
these kinds of synchronistic events to make their stories more interesting. Now I know
that life is full of foreshadowing, synchronicity and serendipity. In fact, life is a sacred
journey full of magic, mystery and wonderful coincidences. And nobody wants to use
the word coincidence any more since James Redfield so aptly pointed out in Celestine
Prophecy that there is purpose and meaning in everything that happens to us, that
synchronicity is a more appropriate word than coincicdence. Confirmations can come
as a shiver down the spine when you recognize the truth of a situation. It can feel like
a light bulb turns on when you hear something that applies. You can receive a
meditation and then have someone outside you tell you the same thing five or six
times in the same day, confirming what you got in meditation. You can have an insight
and then find it described beautifully in a book. Confirmations can come as doors
opening so you can accomplish seemingly impossible goals with ease and flow.
Confirmation can come as the right amount of money showing up just when you need
it. Confirmation can come as a song on the radio (cosmic radio) that is the answer to
the question you've been asking. All around us are confirmations that say we're on
the path, and all is well. We have to develop our powers of observation to notice
them, we have to pay attention to life. Through the years, I have often asked if I
would or should take a course of action and had a billboard in front of my face that
gave me the answer like, "The Right Stuff, Right Now." I take that as a positive sign,
and the next day, the pending course of action is confirmed.
When I began my conscious exploration of alternative spiritual paths (formerly a
Baptist Child), I was seeking phenomenal events. I was more interested in being
psychic than being spiritual. It was no accident that one of the first people I
encountered was a Seik who said to me, if you pursue psychic abilities, you will have
them, but you won't necessarily be spiritual. If you pursue spirituality, you will gain all
the powers of the other worlds along the way, and you will use them wisely and in a
spiritual way. My first response was, "I've had enough of religion, I just want to
explore the astral plane, have some out of body experiences and develop my psychic
powers."
Well, I went along my own path, as I should, and as we all should. I learned to
channel, do psychometry, read tarot, take guided meditation trips, and make accurate
psychic predictions, but it didn't solve the other issues in my life. Family issues,
relationship issues, personal emotional issues, issues of financial solvency; all
remained and needed tending. Of course, sometimes I got insight into those issues,
but I also got the challenges that come with traveling this path. People challenging
you to prove you're a psychic, and if you don't want to prove it, you must not be any
good. People judging me from their fears as witch or satanic or controlling others
psychically. Other people wanting to give up their power and let me make major
decisions in their lives. Many other challenges come with this path, but so do many
rewards - a sense of connection, a sense of community, a feeling of having help with
my issues, an intuitive sense of my ability to heal my issues and deal with challenges
appropriately, a sense of wholeness, freedom and joy, self acceptance, personal
power, and a feeling of being "in love" even when I'm working hard on a project or on
myself. A general sense of well-being that comes with the Oneness.
After traveling the psychic path for a while, I came to realize that I didn't want other
people to depend on me for readings. If I could develop this ability, so could others. If
I could learn to listen to my intuition, so could others. And so, I stopped doing
readings, except on extreme need occasions, and began to focus on techniques that
helped others move energy in their own lives. I began to teach. Also, Past Life
Regressions came in handy if people wanted to stop repeating patterns in their lives,
but many people just wanted the entertainment value of a past life reading. For them,
it was like watching a movie, and they were starring. Later, I acquired the skills and
processes of Integration, one of the greatest healing tools I've ever experienced.
Many modalities were combined into a wholistic approach to self actualization. Now, all
the work I do has very individualized processes that move you toward wholeness, joy
and personal fulfillment.
There are always those who want to work their path and others who just want to be
entertained. I try to stay out of judgment about that. However, I always hand back
power that others give me and let them know they have the power to create their own
lives. I'm willing to help anyone who is willing to do their own work, but I'm not willing
to do their spiritual work for them - because I can't, and if I try, I take on a lot of
responsibility for the outcome. I'm willing to teach all explorers on the path what I
have learned, and that's all I am capable of - sharing what I've learned.
Follow your own path, and if your guidance comes into conflict with something
someone tells you, follow your own guidance every time.
Be bold, be brave, be joyful. =0=
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Writing by: Sandy Penny WritingMuse sandy@writingmuse.com Explore my life, writing and the magical mystical winding road I have traveled to become the WritingMuse |
| In the Beginning Spiritual Confirmation |