Discover

The Amazing True Story

of a Reluctant

Practical Mystic

The Story begins....

It was bitterly cold in Southwestern Minnesota when my Aunt Betty came to visit in the winter of 1973-74. She slept in my room, an add-on to a small trailer house on the lot of an A&W root-beer stand my folks had bought two years previously after leaving the farm. We all thought Aunt Betty was a bit eccentric. We loved her, were terrified of her, or couldn’t wait until she left because she never left without leaving an impression. We never knew which of the experiences would hit us first, my three brothers and I. She was my mother’s baby sister. What I liked about her, as a thirteen-year-old just coming into young womanhood, was her down to earth practicality, no nonsense ways, and spirituality. Aunt Betty inspired me.

On this particular night as we lay in the dark talking, she said something I knew to be true deep down to my bones. It had such a strong resonance that my whole body came alive with the words. They were power to me, they were God, they were Truth, and I KNEW it. She was talking to me about prayer and the power of our thoughts. If we only knew the power of our thoughts combined with faith we could do anything.

Before falling asleep, I was inspired and in that moment I prayed as an innocent thirteen-year-old Christian girl, ‘Dear God, I want a boyfriend that I can ‘save’ and bring to know you as I know you.’ I knew without any doubt it was going to happen. In my innocence - and ignorance of universal law and power - I had just created for myself a situation that would come to pass only three years later that would nearly destroyed me.

It took me years to realize what I had done powerfully in my thoughts to bring this about. When this young man entered my life it was like we were destined to be together, even when it was so obvious to everyone else that this was an odd pairing. It became apparent on the outside that I had ‘saved’ him in a fundamental Christian sense and we were into our ‘Jesus Freak’ time, as some of the kids at school called it. I had literally manifested through a particular way of praying what would happen in my future. How had I done that? All I knew is that I had, but I didn’t know it until five years later.

My family was adamantly against me going out with a ‘drug dealer seeing other young women behind your back’ kind of young man while I was a senior in high school, then off to college. I, of course, in my youth and love for him knew what my parents told me couldn’t possibly be true. I was the victim of blind love, of loving so much I lost myself in the process by giving my all to this young man who held my heart and soul. My parents threatened me with taking away my car; I handed over the keys. My mother begged, pleaded and prayed for me when I became engaged. I moved out. My mother was devastated. I don’t think she ate for several months she was so sick at heart about her only baby girl doing this destructive thing. The one she wanted so badly to protect but couldn’t.

The relationship eventually ended badly. He had gotten another girl pregnant, his third I found out later, and I was devastated, shattered. My dreams and illusions of young love felt all too adult. I needed a time out. I took a semester break from college. My parents were grieving this decision, but I assured them that I would only be taking one semester off and going back to college again in the fall. With my limited funds, I rented a small second floor apartment in my hometown in an old and beautiful yellow Victorian house that had been converted into apartments still there today. It had the most beautiful lead cut glass windows that would throw rainbows of light into my favorite room where I spent most of my time.

This was January of 1978. I was eighteen years old. It would begin the most deeply inward journey I would ever undertake up to that time. In my stress, disillusionment, and grief I went on an inward journey into prayer and meditation. At that time, in a small conservative rural town in Minnesota, I had never even heard the word meditation, however, it was something I had been doing from the time of my earliest memories. Surprisingly the mother of my old boyfriend, who lived quite close, emotionally supported me. She never one time judged me, only loved me and I knew she constantly prayed for us both. Her son married the young woman he had gotten pregnant. I knew my grandparents were praying for me, and as for my mother, she only wanted me close at home or back in college, both of which I wasn’t ready for, so emotionally I kept her out. I knew this hurt her but I needed time. My best friend had also quit college the second semester to plan her wedding, so surprising to us both, we found ourselves back in our hometown less than a year after graduation.

I now had nine months to get my life back in order and recover from my shattered illusions. I was also recovering from something else. A decision I made during my time with this young man that violated everything I ever believed as precious to life. While I wouldn’t have changed that decision, I now had to learn to live with it, and I could hardly bare it. It was the first time in my life I felt disconnected to my inner life and conversation. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I was sick at heart. It ate at my soul, at the very core of my being. Yet, I had to learn to live with it, and I couldn’t. I was so stressed I could no longer see in color. Everything looked shades of gray. I felt betrayed, lost. I hurt so badly I would go out into the country and scream and scream and scream until my throat was raw, and fall down sobbing trying to release the pain inside of me, hoping it would end. That I could learn to live with what I had done.

Finally, I came to a decision that would determine if I was going to live or die. I went into my favorite room with the lead glass windows in my apartment, got down on my knees, and prayed. I cried. I yelled. I prayed some more. I begged. I refused to eat, drink, sleep, or move until I could reestablish my inner connection. I was flat out not going to live like this any longer. As I lay with my head in the cushions of the funky old golden recliner chair, I pounded it demanding from God to be released from this torture, to find peace. In my adamant resolve, I demanded peace and that ‘they’ begin to communicate with me again or, I was going to stay there until I died. I meant it, from the deepest parts of my being. I would rather die than not have that inner joy-filled peace I was used to feeling. I couldn’t go on living not being able to communicate any longer with ‘Hey You Guys’ whom I had always been able to communicate with from the time I was a little girl. I couldn’t forgive myself. I wanted God to forgive me, and God demanded I forgive myself. I couldn’t do it. I threatened, begged, I prayed for release, for grace.

It was now the third night of no sleep, food, or drink. I was weak. I had totally surrendered my spirit. I gave my life to God in every way. I had nothing left to give. I was done bargaining, begging, and pleading. I was done and I surrendered, as this was the only thing I truly had left to give. It was dark out. My throat burned and my eyes were bloodshot, and still I prayed. I needed release. I needed comfort. I needed, wanted, desired, and demanded peace above all else. All I wanted was peace. Dear God give me peace . . . give me peace, I surrender all, just give me peace. In my exhaustion, dehydration, and weakness I could feel myself beginning to pass out and felt that it was over. My thought as I started to fade was that I was going to die now, but as I was sliding toward unconsciousness something mysterious happened.

In the dark of the night, with only starlight streaming where I lay huddled on the cold fifty-five degree floor because I couldn’t afford to turn the heat on, I felt a calm enter the room like a presence. Calm had a presence. The room suddenly felt like there were hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands of Beings in it, crowded, expectant, calm, full, but I couldn’t see anything. I wanted to call out, ‘Who is there? I feel you; I know you are there. Who are you?” Like the quiet before a storm when everything becomes still, nothing could be heard inside or out, not even my breath. The space felt pressurized.

Above me, a light caught my attention. In the darkness, the ceiling of the room disappeared and opened up to the night sky as if the third floor and roof never existed. I could see the stars and a beam of light streaming toward me. Other streams of light came down from it to surround me in a curtain of light. The main beam of light descended directly toward me as I was looking up. I completely opened myself up to the light as it entered my forehead then flooded down my body filling me with a profound loving light. I knew I was home. I felt the ‘peace that passes no understanding’ softly but powerfully flow through me, healing me. I began to feel clean, whole, and complete. I was home. I felt like I had waited an eternity to be home again. I never wanted to leave this feeling. I was pure knowledge. I was pure light. I was pure truth. Divine Essence was in communion with me. I was in communion it. I heard the music of the spheres. Even today, so many years later, I hear music when there is no physical music playing anywhere in evidence.

It all happened in the blink of an eye or an eternity because it felt like both at the same time. Physically I was in the midst of passing out. Consciousness wise, it felt like an eternity of being filled with love in the form of light. I don’t remember much more than that because I passed out onto the cold floor. I awoke in the morning refreshed like I’d had the best night sleep wrapped in the richest, warmest down comforter you could imagine. It felt like springtime inside me, even though it was the dead of winter in Minnesota and I was literally lying on a cold floor but didn’t feel it. I heard the birds. I felt the sunlight on my face. I could see in color again. I saw the sparkling rainbow lights reflected through the lead glass windows. I felt radiant inside! Life was good. It felt as if all I could do is beam sincere gratitude from my heart to this profound presence. ‘Rejoice! Oh, Rejoice! Life is so very good. Thank you, thank you dear precious God, I give thanks.”

This experience was the beginning of a time that would forever change my life. During the following nine-month period, I was in constant communion with this Divine Intelligence. I prayed and meditated for at least eighteen hours a day or more because I had little need for sleep. I gave thanks for everything large and small. I read the Bible constantly and discovered hidden truth in it that I could now see/hear/understand/know so clearly with my new inner awareness. I simply knew things. I could hear truth! I would read and knew when things weren’t true in the Bible because I could hear the sounds were not true; they were off, or distorted, or flat. If it was not truth or if it was corrupted truth, I could hear it as I read. I knew parts of the Bible story were missing. How did I know? I just knew much of our true history was missing. I knew as I read there were sections with no resonance, life, or energy combined with a feeling of flatness or non-alignment, disharmony. When I found these sections, I knew that this was a part of the Bible that was not truth and had been added or changed, but to what reason if not to manipulate our history or us as humans. I didn’t know. I only knew there were sections that sounded off.

Then one day, in my altered state of consciousness, I read something that would again guide the course of my life. I knew it to be the most fundamental truth of our time, our existence. I knew it to be the most profound truth of the entire Bible. I knew it to the core of my being because of the inner sounds, life, energy, and resonance this passage radiated as I read it. I was reading it in the book of Matthew 19-21. The disciples were talking to Jesus wondering why they couldn’t cast out demons and Jesus was replying, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you’ What I didn’t remember until I went researching this passage years later for this book was this following sentence. ‘But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.’ (New American Standard Bible) I wouldn’t have remembered this part because I was praying and fasting and I wouldn’t have recognized it as anything other than what I was already doing.

I was so energized by reading this as it resonated through me as a deep never ending gong of truth sounding within me that I didn’t sleep the entire night. After I read this, I sat with it in meditation and awe pondering the truth that had been revealed to me, and the consequences of it. I felt this statement resonate through every cell of my body. From that point on I began to pray differently, with intensity and focus that I never had before. Prayer became a living communion of co-creatorship. A relationship of excitement and curiosity of ‘what can we create together?’ I moved from being a child in my understanding of my relationship of an external ‘God taking care of things,’ to a living relationship with a Creative Force. Things began to happen. Differently. Immediately.

I needed closure on my previous relationship so I prayed in a particular way to be able to get a ride out to a small town in western South Dakota, population nil – meaning around 300. Now if you know anything about western South Dakota you know there isn’t anything out there for hundreds of miles except rangeland. I had no money, I had no car, I had no logical way to get there, but this didn’t mean anything to me because I knew how to pray! I prayed in a particular way and I knew I would get there. After I prayed a concentrated, powerful thought lasting less than five seconds, I released it from the center of my being. Immediately I got the feeling I needed to go to the grocery store ‘right now.’ If felt urgent so I did so with blind trust.

Considering the fact that I was juice fasting most of the time with fresh squeezed lemon in hot water with honey, I really had no great need to go to the grocery store. I wasn’t fasting to fast. I was fasting because I was not hungry. I remember forcing myself to eat one of those one by three inch fish sticks that were so popular in the 70’s once a week not understanding my lack of appetite. It wasn’t for nearly 30 years before I finally put together that I had been so filled with light that I didn’t need to eat. At the grocery store, I picked up some juice and stood in line. Behind me was a good-looking dark-haired young man in his late twenties that I began visiting with. We ended up visiting longer than either of us anticipated because something went wrong with the cash register. I wonder now if my inner friends had anything to do with that.

As it turns out, he was from out of town visiting relatives for a fiftieth wedding anniversary. He said he was going back out of town to pick up two of his great aunts, then coming back to continue his help for the celebration. Naturally, I asked him where he was going. ‘Somewhere out in Northwestern South Dakota, in range country where there is nothin’ but rabbits, coyotes, and cattle,’ was his laughing reply. I asked him if he happened to be going through this small town I wanted to go to, and he said as a matter of fact he was going a few miles west of there, and coming back two days later! He would be glad for the company. My sincere and empowered thoughts had nearly instantaneously manifested as a free ride to exactly where I needed to go!

I hardly had any money, because I refused to get into my self-earned college fund, so I needed a job. In the middle of my rainbow room, I again prayed. That same day I was offered three jobs. Mind you, I had no phone because I couldn’t afford it, no car, only a bicycle. People had to both think of me and find me to offer me the jobs! One came to where I was at my apartment; one saw me out taking a walk and stopped me; and the other contacted my parents. My sincere and empowered thoughts had nearly instantaneously manifested me three job offers in one day, hours after I had prayed!

It didn’t matter what I wanted or needed. If I prayed in this particular way, my desire was made manifest. I didn’t have to know how it was going to come to me. I didn’t have to think about when it was going to come to me. I put no effort what so ever into trying to manage or control the outcome. I just prayed it in this particular way, followed the direction and promptings of my inner voice teachings and my desires manifested immediately.

At this point, I had been praying like this for seven months whenever I had need. During this time, I tried to share this incredible discovery with some of my Christian friends. One young woman came to visit me with friends that I had met at a Christian camp when I was sixteen. We met at the lush and well-used public park in my hometown by the river. I shared with them what was happening to me with my prayers, but in my enthusiasm, they actually backed away from me with fear in their eyes. I was devastated. I never heard from them again. It deeply hurt me that a truth so rare and fine, that anyone could do, wouldn’t want to do it too, and find out more about it. Did they have so little curiosity? I learned I couldn’t share what I knew, so I kept it to myself with a lesson learned to keep silent or risk people thinking I was crazy.

Praying in this way was so effortless and easy. Why wasn’t everyone doing this? Why didn’t everyone know about this? I know the passage in Matthew was read in church. Didn’t anyone know how true it was? Didn’t everyone hear the music of truth when listening to the words being spoken? Didn’t everyone see the streams of light and feel the rightness of praying in this way to create the world around them? I was a living witness and participant to what I thought was thee fundamental governing principle of the universe. That our thoughts, thought in a particular way, created a response that comes back to us.

Because of my Christian upbringing, I always ended my prayers, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ.’ I physically felt the prayer in my body radiating outward like an isometric exercise of contraction and release. I felt the power of the word, and released it, powerfully, without any doubt what so ever that it would manifest.

Then one day, seven months into my personal retreat, something happened that shocked me to my core. It changed how I perceived life and my relationship to the nature of reality forever. It was a profound moment of waking up out of a sleeping consciousness.

Here is what happened. I wanted to visit my college roommate who lived in Minneapolis. With no car and little money, I had no way to get there, but that didn’t bother me in the least. All I had to do was energize my desire in the way my inner teachers had shown me. I did, and at six o’clock in the morning, when my upstairs neighbor knocked on my door for our early morning jog, Jim let me know he was going to be going out of town for the 4^th of July holiday. When I asked where he was going (inwardly knowing what he was going to say), he replied he was going to Minneapolis. Perfect! God had responded to my request once again! I was filled with such gratitude.

Jim said I could hitch a ride, but he wanted me to know he was first stopping for on overnight at the lake cabin to visit his family for the holiday, which I agreed to with delight! Not only did I get a ride to visit my friend, I received an additional benefit of getting to go ski! When we arrived on the appointed weekend, folks were disappointed because there was a wind advisory, so we couldn’t go skiing with whitecaps on the lake. I don’t know why I did this, or why I received a positive response, but I asked if someone would give me a ride on the boat. ‘Sure!’ replied one of two boat owners, so off we went. This powerboat had a seating area in the front, with a hinged window between. Because of the winds and choppiness of the water, if I didn’t stand I would have gotten bounced around and thrown out, so I stood at the opening where the windshield had been locked open. I joyfully felt the power of the wind as my hands gripped each side of the window frame. We pounded over the water with the sound and vibration of the boom, boom, boom of crashing into the waves, when I felt myself falling backwards into stillness.

In this stillness, there was no sound. I had no feeling of my physical body at all. I had no recognition of my body being violently yanked around, or the booming sound of the boat hitting the water. All I had was stillness. Into this stillness, I released my heart’s desire. In both words and crystal clear visualization I lovingly said, ‘Wind, it would be so nice if you could go around the lake so we could go skiing. Not if it’s going to created a global weather pattern crisis, but Wind, if you could go around the lake, that would be so nice. Thank you!” I had visualized the winds parting to go around both sides of the lake, with the water calm and smooth for ideal skiing conditions. After I released this thought-desire with waves of gratitude bursting from my heart, I could feel myself coming out of the stillness back to the sounds and pounding of the boat. As soon as my consciousness was back, the boat driver yelled through the wind, ‘It really is too dangerous for us to be out. We need to head back.” I was still blissing out, so smile back my acknowledgment.

We head back to shore, but as we turned to go back, something started to happen. It could not have taken more than five to eight minutes because it was a small lake, and we were moving fast. Within this short period, the wind didn’t slow down, but stopped blowing. I hadn’t realized this because of the wind blowing us from high-speed travel. By the time we turned the boat around and started to head back the water was visibly calmer. I thought I was seeing things, but it was like all the energy of the churning water was gone. Think of how much energy is in a churning lake with high winds, and all the competing wave patterns. Under normal circumstances, it would take some time for the waters to calm. I watched as the waves started to sink down as if there wasn’t any energy left to sustain them. The lake went from being a dangerous situation with whitecaps, to being as calm and smooth as a glass top table. By the time we reached the dock, folks were grabbing their gear to go skiing and prepping the other boat.

As for myself, I was stunned. No one else knew what I had prayed for not 15 minutes ago, but they were enjoying the results of that prayer. This incident shocked me out of a seven-month trance-state in total communion with Spirit like a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on me without warning. I staggered around the lake and plopped down in shock on the bank overlooking the lake thinking, ‘That did not just happen. I did not just do that. Nope. Not me. It could not have been me.’ Okay, I would sigh with relief thinking, ‘It was going to happen anyway. Yes, that’s it. It was going to happen anyway. No, it wasn’t my prayer.’ As I sat there, I reflected on exactly what I did as I replayed it repeatedly in my mind with the resulting, shocking outcome. How could the exact thing I visualized with power be the exact thing that manifested right before my eyes in less than eight minutes; from official wind advisories and danger to perfectly calm within eight minutes?!?

As I contemplate this event, struggling with the implications, I feel as if I have someone behind me who tapped me on my right shoulder. Said slightly sarcastically I hear a male voice say, ‘Exactly what do you think you’ve been doing for the past seven months?” Whoosh, I start to be flooded with memories of my prayer experiences as this male voice continues, ‘Like what about the time you couldn’t run the mile, but you did it effortlessly anyway after you prayed?’

I remember back. Oh, yes, that. I had wanted to run the mile so badly. Mostly I’m a hiker, not a runner, but I thought it looked cool to run, so try as I might I would get out every morning with my neighbor, Jim, who would knock on my door and say it was time to go. And every morning when I would attempt to go running with him, I would barely last three blocks with huffing and puffing and end up walking the rest of the way. This went on for days, then weeks without any improvement. Then one morning I woke up at six in the morning and prayed in this particular way with the intention I was going to run the mile that day. I felt the power of the word and released it, powerfully, without any doubt what so ever that it would manifest. Mostly I felt like I was still half asleep and praying on automatic pilot. By this time I had manifested so many things that it didn’t feel like anything unusual. I had never thought to pray for something as mundane as running the mile.

I head out of my apartment down the steps to join Jim with our usual warm-up stretches when Jim and I head off. Pretty soon Jim looks over at me and asks, ‘Are you alright?’ I reply, ‘Yes, of course.’ We keep running. Uphill. The first half-mile is straight up a hill. He asks again, ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ ‘Yep,’ I reply casually. The third time he asks me this we are heading down hill three-quarters into the mile and I’m not even breathing hard! My body has no idea it can’t run this mile. My biology had no ‘tired response’ in evidence and Jim had been noticing this, thus the questions if I was okay. Then I notice his attention about this unusual morning jog, and guess what? I snap out of whatever trance I was in and am instantly out of breath. ‘Oh my god, I’m out of breath, my legs burn, I’m going to walk the last two blocks.’ As long as I held the matrix for me to run that mile, I ran it easily, without any effort. Until I held the thought that there was no way I could run that mile, and then, of course, I couldn’t because my system snapped from one agreement (I can’t run the mile), to a new agreement (I will run the mile), snapping back to the old agreement where my body responded in kind.

I had forgotten this manifestation of running the mile. As I was finished with that memory, the male voice continued. He forceful reminded me of the times I had manifested so many things with memories coming at me like shots out of an automatic gun: for the rain to stop until I got home, which conveniently stopped as soon as I asked, then started again the minute I walked into my apartment door. For healing in my relationship with my parents; for one of my plants to heal that looked like it was going to die; for the money to hook up a telephone and the next day I got a bonus and raise I never asked for.

On and on it went, all afternoon reflecting on those past seven months and this relationship I had developed with the Divine that was as natural as breathing. This ability had gone from being a conscious act to being a living, breathing part of my life. It was me, not me doing something, but me being something. There wasn’t such a thing as being separated from it. How ridiculous to even think it.

Now came the implications of what I knew, not believed, but knew down to my bones. As my consciousness was waking up with these forced memories and what happened calming the waters this day, I realized I was sitting in grief having to give up my god concept. I had lost my god, was the echoing ache in my chest. I felt so alone, but I now knew there was no god in the way I had been brought up in church – a personal individual male guardian who, with His discernment, would grant my prayer or not, and I was some meaningless little dweeb in submission waiting for His crumbs if I was a good little Christian girl. Instead, I knew I was dealing with an interactive field of intelligence. With this event, my science mind and curiosity were fully alert with a passion to research this Field and how it worked.

From this point forward, I never again used my powers so naively. I now knew I needed to think about the consequence of using the powers, because my thoughts could change my physical life and circumstance nearly instantly. Oh my god, what if I had prayed for things selfishly, or to harm another. I knew this power was like any tool or weapon. It can be used to benefit mankind or destroy it, to benefit a person’s life or unconsciously destroy it. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, no way do I want to share this with anyone. I would never want to be responsible for how this power might be used!’ I had two reasons not to share this information now. People will think I’m crazy, and I would be handing people a powerful tool that I didn’t want the responsibility for how they might use it. Wow. I was alone again with the information of mystical prayer and I couldn’t tell anyone.

With a burning in my belly to study the patterns of this power, I began to use the process of mystical prayer in a more conscious and responsible way. Over the years I gained hundreds of experiences, most of which I can’t even remember anymore. However, with each new experience, I learned something more about the power, the Field, and about how the two were responsive to each other. From the time I was a little girl, I would see patterns. For me, everything is repeating patterns. I had a life mission now to discover the patterns of the interactive relationship between the power of my intentions in the form of prayer, and the Field. My research was a weaving of real life experiences as I went to college, got married, and had children. I watched. I learned. I talked to my inner team for clarification. This went on for years as my own personal research project, until one day, in meditation that changed.

GETTING BAPTIZED

The hardest time I had was trying to discuss my experiences with anyone. I really wanted to have some meaningful philosophical discussions, but other late teens were more interested in listening to the latest Christian musical talent that started blooming in the 70’s. They certainly weren’t interested in talking about mystical things. Moreover, my best friend had just gotten married, so she was in her honeymoon bliss time with goo-goo eyes. Then I had the one bad experience when I did try to talk to some young people about it. I never heard from those friends again as they backed away from me in fear! No one I knew was interested in talking philosophy with a blond, five foot two inch, nineteen year old who looked like she was thirteen with boobs. I couldn’t talk to my parents or grandparents about it because, of course, they’d be ‘too old to understand.’ (I was, after all, still a teenager.) They probably would have been the perfect people to talk to, but a teenager’s way is not to talk to the parents and I was no different. Besides, my folks were looking a bit stressed around the edges and had their own life issues to deal with.

I contemplated trying the only other religious experience I could in my little home town, being a protestant Methodist, and that was the Catholics. Maybe they would talk to me about what I was experiencing. However, after visiting the local Catholic Church I figured they stood up and sat down too much to ever hear God. Where was the silence? It was simply too much work to try that one on because they had a lot of rules, vows, and church laws they wanted you to adhere to. My free spirit was rebellious about all those rules and vows, so instead I tried on the Baptists. They were happy, fun, musical, and I had an in with some Baptist friends. The Baptist church had recently hired a young, new minister and adorable Barbie-doll wife with musical talent who loved young people. They, of course wanted me to be ‘baptized so I could be saved.’ Well, if the Catholics stand up and sit down a lot, maybe the Baptist way was to dunk everyone in the bathtub in the front of the church to save them. My calculations figured the Baptists were easier to try on than the Catholics, way more fun with the music, and I loved to sing. If I did what they wanted, (i.e., get dunked/saved in their baptism ritual) then maybe I would be on the inside circle and we would get to talk about things that were meaningful to me.

My discussion about baptism with the minister was something he was probably quite astonished at. It went something like this. He’s telling me in the privacy of his office, if I want to join the church then I need to be saved by accepting Jesus into my heart and by baptism. I ask him, ‘Saved from what?’ He says, ‘From your sins.’ I say, ‘What sins?’ He says, ‘Original sin.’ I had a feeling wash through me as if a familiar presence joined with me and I replied to him, ‘Don’t you know we have no sin? We are the lights of the world just as Jesus was the light of the world and we have no sin. We are perfect in the sight of God just as we are. And we are loved beyond our understanding.’ His eyes got big as he stared at this little, one hundred ten pound, blond girl. I’m quite sure he felt I needed saved more than anyone in town in that moment.

He had no idea of what my experiences had been for the past months. He had no idea that I was in direct experience with the Divine, all the time. I seriously didn’t know what I needed to be saved for, but I thought heck, it looked fun to get dunked, and I knew everyone would be happy for me if I were saved. As for me, well I figured I’d then get to be on the inside circle where we could talk about mystical prayer. I wanted to know if others were doing the same thing as I was.

The day comes to get baptized, but after the conversation I had with the minister when I agreed to this, I’m sure he held me under just a little longer than the others to make sure I was especially clean in the eyes of God. It was a wet experience, I would have liked to stay under for a while longer so I could have talked to God longer about what I was intending on committing to in my life as long as I was doing this, but it wasn’t to be. Didn’t anyone know it takes time and effort to do this ritual thing? If I was going to do it, I wanted the time to do it right, no rushing please. Oh well, it was over, the external part. Everyone was happy for me, but I didn’t feel any different on the inside because I was already in a peaceful place with Divine communion.

After a few weeks, I was getting frustrated. Still no one wanted to talk about this cool thing I was doing with prayer, and how anyone could manifest anything! All the response I would get was a, ‘Yeh, you pray, and you get answers to prayer, everybody knows that.’ But what about all these folks complaining about their lives? Didn’t they know they could do something about it? I wanted to talk about that part of prayer.

Then one day I get asked to attend a ‘special meeting.’ I get so excited because I think this is where I become a member of the ‘inside circle’ where the important secret things are talked about. The day finally arrives. Many people are there and it is time to begin. We start with a prayer of thanksgiving for all the new folks who have been ‘saved.’ I was starting to get irritated with the word. The minister begins the discussion about how, as saved members of the church, we now have a responsibility to the community to help bring the message of salvation to others. I tried to stay patient, sure he would get to the more important part of the meeting soon, but it never happened. Here I went to all the trouble of being dunked and now folks just wanted to smile at me and have me find others to go get dunked. Didn’t they know it didn’t matter? That what was on the inside was the only thing that mattered. Didn’t anyone else know about mystical prayer?

Now what was I going to do. I still wasn’t too thrilled with going to the Catholics. They looked like they had a lot of stuff to memorize. How would I ever remember to stand up and sit down in the right place, while reciting a bunch of stuff? I’d probably trip going up to the Holy Water and dipping my fingers in and crossing myself. Then someone told me that once you’re a Catholic, you always have to be a Catholic or get excommunicated, and that didn’t sound so good. It was much, much simpler just going straight to the Source in meditation and prayer all on my own in my quiet apartment without anyone around to distract me from it. It was where I got my strength, my inspiration, my knowing. Nothing else was as important, but I still wanted someone to talk to about it.

It was the late 70’s. The East was barely opened up to the West. For a young woman in a small rural Midwest farming town, to discuss Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Comparative Religion (which I’m not sure even existed at the time) or reincarnation was about as possible as going to moon. In my little world, those things were all what ‘uneducated heathens’ believed, but they were all going to Hell, because they hadn’t been saved. I had no spiritual elders. I had the strong and abiding influence of people who lived their lives in a quiet Christian faith but they were limited by their upbringing and could not discuss anything outside the religious dogma. What was I to do?

I knew, of course, to go inward and discuss it with my inner teachers, who felt more like loving friends. Apparently, not everyone was having the same experience I was. I had no idea that what I was doing was studying mystical or esoteric spirituality in my own way. It wasn’t until much later that I learned my spirit friends were training me in the mystical arts. Native Americans do the vision quest, to seek out spirit guidance. Taoists and others go into caves to meditate and fast for days or months, along with every esoteric mystical sect for as far back as recorded history. I was doing what others before me had done for thousands of years, but I didn’t know it. All I knew was that I had no physical spiritual elders to talk to. I was forced to go inward and rely on my inner guidance and communication. I grumbled about it constantly, but I had to trust it. Over time, my complaints were explained. “We would not have you contaminated with the limited thinking of others.”

Nine months were about to end and it was time for me to go back to college. From this point on, my life was guided from within, even the choice of college. In my mind, I argued that the college I was being guided to attend would be too expensive as it was out of state. I wouldn’t be able to afford the tuition. All I received back was, ‘Go!’ I called the college and to my surprise found out Minnesota and South Dakota had only recently reached an agreement called reciprocity. That meant I could go without having to pay out of state tuition! I didn’t know this, but because I had trusted in my inner guidance, it all worked out. In two days, I was signed up, called my folks to see if they would give me a ride. They were thrilled I was actually going. They felt as if their prayers had been answered.

***

YOUNG ADULT LIFE:

College was a blast. My free spirit loved the freedom of being on my own doing what I wanted. Being one who likes and needs quiet around me, forced dorm life was a definite challenge. Seriously, how can you hear your inner guidance if it’s so noisy all the time with kids let free for the first time? However, I did love meeting new people with new ways of seeing the world. I enjoyed exploring the classes, minus anything math related, where I fell in love with the sciences. I couldn’t get enough of the various classes on chemistry, biochemistry, biology, food science, and anatomy. I loved anything that helped to explain the patterns of nature. The natural sciences were magical to me.

I went to college during the time in world history where the leader of Iran had been kicked out, so we had many Iranian students around campus. It was a difficult time for them being taught to hate the West. I would listen to their impassioned feelings about their political situation. I watched as they personally grew and softened their positions as time moved them further away from the immediacy of their situation, and learned new perspectives from being in the West. They relaxed more, and instead of irrationally debating every position as if their life depended on it, somewhat like the fundamentalist Christians in comparative religion classes, they became more open to discuss topics objectively. I found their social and psychological transformation fascinating to watch unfold.

University opened up ways for me to encounter many different cultures with different religious beliefs. What I didn’t know at the time was my Christian upbringing gave me an assumed attitude of not allowing me to even consider checking other belief systems as possible sources of mystical information. I know that sounds ridiculous now, but I was brought up as a ‘good Christian girl.’ That meant the only true religion, in my cultural-religious brainwashing, was Christianity and everyone else was a heathen lost to ignorance that we had a responsibility to save.

I didn’t know the rest of the world probably felt the same way about their particular belief system. I saw this reflected in other Christian sects thinking their particular version was the only way. Baptists were especially good at this one. You had to be ‘saved or you go to hell on judgment day’ was taken seriously in my community. At the time, I never thought about this pattern being a reflection of the world situation as a whole. I did, however, follow any lead I had to understand my way of mystical prayer, like finding folks who talked about angels, ghosts, and spirits. They mostly ended up being weirdoes. I wanted to talk real mystical experience with some common sense and just plain ordinariness!

Couldn’t people see how their talk about God as omnipotent, was different than their beliefs and actions? An omnipotent God would not say there was only way to salvation, whatever that means. An omnipotent God would have room to worship in as many ways as there are Beings on the planet. Didn’t people know we are all one, and by hurting one, you hurt us all? I had a difficult time understanding this world growing up. I still do.

I was in a weird place mentally. I assumed others experienced the same inner communication I had always had, but found no one to talk to about it. It takes time to break down all the brainwashing from our social, religious, and cultural agreements. I was no different, so Eastern mysticism was unavailable to me. Besides, I was born too late to be a cannabis-smoking hippie where I might have been exposed to other teachings and more freethinking ways. Trying to sort it out was too much frustration because I had a much simpler way to get information. I could skip the whole ‘who is right’ conversation, and go straight to my inner team in meditation.

That way, any question I had, I could go in and ask. I didn’t have to filter it through a bunch of someone else’s beliefs. I didn’t have to set up an appointment. I didn’t have to scour through thousands of books reading a lot of blah, blah, and more blah about subjects others already wrote about, but the author had not personal experienced. I could find a quiet place to sink in, link up to my team whom I have called ‘Hey You Guys,’ since forever, and have a nice conversation and teaching on any topic I was interested in. Voila! I had an instant inner community of friends that I could link up with in the comfort of my home, after a nice cup of hot tea. You just couldn’t see them.

It never occurred to me as a five years old little girl, standing in my kindergarten class, listening to my inner teacher that I might be having a unique experience. This was my normal life. Our communication was obviously telepathic; he was telling me to watch the patterns of behavior of my other classmates in an upsetting situation currently being played out. We children had our miniature metal and wooden chairs situated around a big piano in the classroom, but my consciousness was standing beside my invisible teacher a little way off in observation.

My Teacher was having me observe the reactions of children picking on a precious little boy by pulling his chair out from under him. The little boy would unexpectedly fall to the ground hurting emotionally with the abuse. The kids would laugh; it was very upsetting to me because pain has a sound and I could hear it. I was shocked when my inner teacher told me to do the same thing, pull the chair out from under this little boy. I refused to do it. It was wrong. Yes, even at the age of five, I would argue and question my teachers. My Teacher said I needed to learn what the other children were missing in their development and character, and this was an ideal situation for the lesson.

I found my consciousness aligned back with my little girl body, went behind this boy, and reluctantly pulled the chair out from under him so he would fall again. The children laughed hilariously. It was sick. I was sick to my stomach and angry at what I had been asked to do. Remember, my little girl consciousness was barely five! I was being taught how to attune to the energies around me. My inner teacher grilled me about what I had felt before, during, and after pulling the chair out. I reported to him telepathically it felt as if someone had burned my insides and punched me in the stomach at the same time. I told him how angry I was he made me do this awful thing. I told him how the little boy felt, how ashamed he felt, as if he didn’t matter. How it hurt his sound, his soul.

My Teacher told me how humans were losing touch with the natural rhythms of the world, and could no longer feel the consequences of their actions. Their lost connection to nature created a missing link to feel into the energy field around them, and so could not feel empathy. This affected relationships with each other and the land. It was a sleeping piece of consciousness, thus empathy that was missing in their character development. The other kids seriously didn’t see anything wrong with doing childish torture. He explained I needed to understand the world I was living in so I could guard against the unconsciousness of finding humor at the cost of another’s pain. He told me to always stand up for myself and never let another abuse me. I couldn’t understand how they could not feel/hear/experience the pain that was so abundantly clear to me. ‘Are they deaf?’ I asked in my childish innocence. ‘Yes, child, yes they are deaf, deaf to nature. It will not go well for the humans if they do not awaken their heart.’

This reminds me about something that happened in the spring of my 8^th grade year. I love to sing, so joined choir for my optional course for the second year in a row. For both years, I was placed next to a girl older than me in the soprano section. One day when we were waiting for the teacher, she said something to me I never forgot. She said, ‘You’re different.’ Well telling a teenager he or she was different was not a good thing when fitting in was the thing, so I cautiously asked her what she meant. She said, ‘I’ve sat next to you every day of the week for two years. Never once, in all that time, have I ever heard you say anything mean about anyone. Ever. That’s not normal. You’re different.’

This made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good enough job hiding, wondered where this thought came from, and immediately tried to fit in with sarcastic behavior, but couldn’t do it. Saying things against nature’s harmony in the form of sarcastic words hurt me more than it hurt the other person, like a high pitched squealing noise deep in my brain, eating ice cream too fast, and getting hit by a football player. Me voicing the sounds of sarcasm actually made me feel sick; it is a terrible sound, like a song being played off key on purpose. I liked swearwords better. They didn’t hurt me, but they did help others feel better by discharging built up energy around them.