Some folks have asked me to serial my book on here, so, ok I will. It is really just a collection of my experiences. I hope to add some new stories as well.
Chapter 1 About Me
It is said that in times past, due to his eccentric habits, the village wise man, or shaman, was often mistaken by outsiders to be the village idiot.
I think that being psychic is akin to shamanism, and that maybe that explains why I am often confused. I find myself with one foot in this world and another in the spirit realm, making it hard to focus on whatever real world task is at hand. I like to think that being somewhat confused is a charming trait, or otherwise I might tend to worry about it.
While I have been known to answer questions concerning the depths of spiritual truths, have guided lost souls to enlightenment, and have assisted grieving ones through their deepest moments of despair, I still have a hard time functioning properly in the everyday world.
When my clients come to visit, they generally leave with heightened spiritual awareness and a deeper understanding of the forces at work in the world around them. They also tend to leave chuckling, for while I am dispensing this wisdom I am also wrangling Chihuahuas, applying tortured logic to convince my husband James to complete a household chore, and frantically searching the cushions of my chair for some lost object. Some of my clients affectionately call this “the Angela experience.”
Fortunately, humor is an important part of spiritual enlightenment. It is through the ability to laugh that we can access our higher selves and diminish the fear of the serious and sometimes ominous tasks we have set out to do. Laughing at ourselves not only keeps life in perspective, it keeps us healthy, both physically and emotionally. Humor allows us to detach and observe the human condition. Most importantly, laughing at life and at ourselves allows us to stay balanced.
I used to find myself in trouble quite often, as I was prone to verbalizing personal observations about folks that were obvious to me, but not so apparent to others. Although intuitive ability runs in my family, I was not as good at keeping my perceptions to myself as they were, and did not realize I might be different from folks outside the kin.
It was well known in my family that my aunt had dreams that later came true, and that my uncle was able to sense illness in others and could heal through touch. My father has had psychic experiences as well. Before the days of caller ID, when you telephoned my dad, more often that not he would pick up and immediately say your name before you had a chance to speak. My grandfather, a truly sweet and caring man, often knew in advance when someone was going to die, and was able to take physical pain away from others on occasion. Papaw, as we called him, always introduced me to others as being special. I thought that was because I lived with him due to my parents’ divorce. However, he later told me that when his late wife had delivered her last child, my dad, she had said that this child was special. Papaw said that he was not sure what she meant, but knew that not only this child would be special, but that his children would be special as well.
Perhaps the special label referred to intuitive ability. However, I was over thirty years old before a businesswoman that I respected finally explained to me that I was psychic. Because of that lady confirming what I had suspected, I began helping people sort out their problems, giving guidance and encouragement, and sharing my vision for them. Until that lady guided me, and encouraged me to act on my abilities, I had not realized how truly different from others I was.
As a child, for example, I often heard the “walls talking” in the house where I lived with my grandparents. I would hear laughter of children, the voice of their mother, and other grown-ups murmuring to one another. It never occurred to me that I was the only one hearing them. It was a comforting sound to me and I was usually lulled to sleep by their happy chatter. When I was older, the wall’s chatter ceased, yet I often felt the presence of unseen others in the room where I slept. I remember having conversations with them in the dark and even reported that fact to my step-grandmother who was still awake in the living room. She assured me that it was only my imagination, and that no one was in my room. I promptly went back to bed and reported to everyone what she had said, and they seemed as confused as I was. They were still there, and no amount of explaining sent them away. I still have the image in my mind of one child sitting on my bed, scratching his head and looking so puzzled upon hearing that he did not exist.
There was another presence in the room at times: a man who was frightening to me. When he would appear, I would take out my Bible that I kept under my pillow and threaten him with it, as any good little Baptist should. It actually worked quite well. Still, I spent many tension-filled nights fearful that he would return.
Visions became a normal part of my world at an early age. I remember standing in the doorway of the back bedroom that opened into the kitchen. As I peered into the kitchen, I had a vision of a woman standing at the stove cooking. I felt that she was the owner of this house: my house. At that time, I was about four years old and I felt that she was incredibly old, probably in her early thirties. She had short brown hair, and seemed very busy with her preparations. As I watched this woman, I felt that she was very familiar, and then I realized that I was looking at a future version of me. Many years later, I did in fact buy my childhood home. One day as I stood cooking dinner for my children, I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and felt eyes boring into my back. I started to turn and look, but stopped. I knew what it was that I was feeling: I felt the child that I had been looking forward into time at the woman I had become. Under my breath, I said, “I feel you, I know you are there.” The sensation of being watched left me, and I realized that a child’s prophecy had been fulfilled.
I realize now that time is an illusion and, rather than think of it as linear, I think of it in this way: Imagine that you are holding a movie reel. All of time is contained in this movie. All that was or will be is recorded there. There are alternate realities with different acts played out, but still the complete movie is on the reel that you hold in your hand. However, in order for it to make sense, you have to experience it one frame at a time. Sometimes we have glimpses into the future, or possible futures depending on choices we make now. While some events are destiny, there may be many paths to those points of destiny. Those paths are determined by the choices we make based on our own free will.
Another childhood vision took place in that kitchen as well. I became aware that there would be a child in my life that would be confined to a wheelchair. I knew that I loved her and that she was wanted. I told my step-grandmother, “I want a handicapped child when I grow up!” “No! You want your children to be healthy,” she said. I felt confused because I knew what I had felt and I knew that I loved this child. Once again, doubt filled my mind and I thought that maybe I was wrong. Still, I could not release the feelings of love that I had experienced for this child I did not yet know. Years later, when I was fourteen, my father and stepmother became the parents of beautiful twin girls. One grew up as a dancer. In fact, she won trophies in regional competitions. Her twin, however, was struck with cerebral palsy at birth, and is to this day confined to a wheelchair. I am certain that she is the child I believed to be my own in my vision years earlier. I was very active in the girls’ childhoods, so much so that many people in town erroneously believed them to be my own children, much to my great embarrassment since I was myself a mere teen.
I also began to get a sense of my own destiny at an early age. When I was four or five, while playing with my dolls, I suddenly felt panicked and needed to know what region of the country I lived in. I knew that I needed to be in the south. I do not know why I needed to be, just that I did. I ran to my step-grandmother and asked her where we were. She answered that we were in North Carolina. “But I need to be in the south,” I said. She reassured me that North Carolina was in the south, despite the name. I felt relieved, my panic vanished, and I resumed my play. I was strangely comforted by the knowledge that I was living where I knew that I was meant to be.
I also recall feeling amazed as a child upon learning that man had not made it to the moon yet. It seemed impossible to me that mankind was still earthbound. I thought, “You mean that is as far as we come, we haven’t even been to the moon?” I remember feeling utterly disappointed and completely surprised at this knowledge.
