When I was a new parent, life was hard. I had two kids less than two years apart (my choice and what the hell was I thinking?) and a full-time job. My husband (long since an ex-husband) was going to nursing school and working. Money and time were tight, and it felt like I didn’t have much support.

I had my kids when I did because I wanted them to be out of the house by the time I was fifty. As the old Yiddish saying goes, Man plans and God laughs. When I was forty-eight, my then nineteen-year-old daughter had her daughter. She and her husband lived with us. They both worked and I took care of the baby. And when the second one came along, well, let’s just say my house looked like a daycare center. And it was hard.

I’ll confess, I felt like a toddler whining, It’s not fair!  Who promised me fair?

But still, wasn’t life supposed to get easier as we get older?

Not necessarily, wouldn’t you agree? Easy isn’t a condition, it’s a feeling. What stresses me out might not be what stresses you out. You might find the chaos of an infant and a toddler enjoyable. I might take your biggest pain-in-the-neck in stride.

It’s important for me to remember that even though I can’t control my circumstances, I can control my energy. I can always choose how I react. I decide how to meet and face difficulties. I get to create the life I want.

Energy can be shifted by using affirmations like

I have the power to overcome any obstacle. No matter what is going on, I can be strong, powerful, and self-directed.

Or

In every moment I have the power to choose how I feel

And when that seems nearly impossible, we can co-create with Spirit.

We have a spiritual team that is always available to us, angels and guides who would love nothing more than to help us out. All we have to do is ask.

Here’s how I call on my spirit squad each day:

Guardians, guides, spirits, and ancestors who work for my highest good, be with me today. Guide me; guard me; show me your love.

And if there’s something specific I need help with, I’ll throw that in.

We have the power to create a life that feels easy. If only I had known that back in the day.

If you’ve had a session with me or if you watch my Facebook Lives, you know something I say a lot is You can’t make this s#*! up.  I say it when I experience coincidences (one of my best friends made the exact same things for the Superbowl as I did: pork chili with tomatillos. What are the odds?). And I say it when I pick up something freaky on the intuition hotline. Last week definitely had me saying You can’t make this s#*! up.

In my Cards & Clearings Live last week, I picked up on someone who was feeling cold and scared. It felt like there was trauma attached to whatever this was, too, and that they were all feeding into each other. The fear was making this person cold, the trauma and cold were making them afraid.

Usually, after a Live, someone will send me a message and say That was my dad—he had COPD or That was me—my nose was running because I was eating something spicy. No one claimed the fear and cold and trauma during that Live.

I had a session with a client immediately afterward. I asked how she was doing, and she said great, but… she had wanted to meet with me because a young woman in one of her classes, Sabrina, had gone missing. In the mountains. In Wyoming. The authorities had just recovered her body, she was dead, but they were not saying how she died. Was it suicide? Was she attacked? Was it exposure? My client was rattled, as most of us are, when there is a death, especially of someone young, and no answers. Life can be so fragile.

We talked for an hour, working through her emotions and discussing what, if any, practical things she could do.

Later that same day, it occurred to me that maybe what I had picked up during the FB Live was from the missing young woman. I texted my client, told her what I had experienced, and asked her to let me know Sabrina’s cause of death.

The next afternoon, she did. Sabrina had died of exposure. She was definitely cold, most likely terrified, and had probably experienced trauma such as falling and hitting her head.

“By the way,” my client said. “I watched your Live. You mentioned hearing the song Hold On by Wilson Phillips, so I watched that video, too. It’s filmed in a place that looks exactly like where Sabrina was hiking.”

I had forgotten that part.

Mind blown. You can’t make this shit up.

Yesterday, I was out the door by 7:00 to pick up my grandson. He’s crawling now and is a little perpetual-motion machine. P.S. The little guy refuses to nap. I dropped him off in the late afternoon and rushed to the middle school to see my granddaughter’s basketball game (her team won). I got home and checked my schedule for today. It’s jam-packed and yet I wondered if I could squeeze a pedicure in between seeing a client and going to volunteer at the elementary school.

Screeeeech! Time to put the brakes on. What about the meditation practice I wanted to pick up again? Where can I fit that in?

My word for 2024 is presence; my resolution is to be more present in my life. I’ve been trying. When I walk our dog, Betty, I try to listen to and identify the birds calling. I try to remember to feel the air on my skin (what little of it is exposed in February). I remind myself to notice the hoarfrost on the trees, the animal tracks on the path instead of writing a blog post in my head. When I’m at Gianna’s basketball game, I watch rather than make a grocery list.

But I have got to stop running around so much I fall into bed exhausted. I need to embrace both stillness and silence.

One way to embrace stillness and silence is to wake up before the rest of the world. Rather than moving into activity, stay still. Leave the lights off. Don’t pick up your phone or turn on music or the TV. Be still and simply listen.

We think of silence as the absence of sound, but silence has its own weight and quality. Listen. What do you hear? Your heartbeat? The furnace or fan? Traffic?

Stay in silence for as long as you can. Can you give it three minutes? Can you remain silent until you feel it move into your core? Can you feel its gentle pulsing? Can you allow it to cleanse you? If you can remain silent for five minutes, you’ll feel vibrant and connected to the Universe.

You may prefer to do this at night if you’re the last one up. Or take five minutes out of your day to experience stillness and silence.

Silence is always there — vast, potent, and available for us to step into any time we choose. Give it a try this week. Let me know what it felt like for you.

“Did I fulfill my soul contract with my ex?” I asked Robert. “Or will I have to marry him again?” Just thinking about it exhausted me.

I went on to explain that one afternoon shortly after my ex and I got together, all the past lives we’d spent together flashed in my mind’s eye. So. Many. Past. Lives. And when I went to divorce him ten years later, I wondered if I had finished whatever it was that kept us coming back together. Had we completed the pattern? Were we free to move on in the next life?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about trading readings with Robert, a psychic who does energy work similar to what I do. Unlike me, he invites his clients to ask Spirit questions.

After I stopped talking, Robert looked off over his right shoulder while he consulted the other side.

“They say yes, divorcing him was the right thing to do. But they also say that your souls have a great love for one another. You’ve been together in many, many lifetimes in different relationships: parent and child, siblings, partners…,” he trailed off and then said, “And you’ll be together again next time.”

I expected to feel frustrated and tired when I heard that. But instead, I felt oddly at peace. I could feel the truth in Robert saying that my soul and my ex’s had a great love for one another. There’s a reason we’ve been linked together for centuries. I’m no longer looking to the cosmic future with a sense of foreboding.

Through a series of synchronicities, I was introduced to Robert. I suggested we exchange readings. He told me to think of some questions I wanted answers to, but I didn’t feel I had any questions. I simply wanted to see what came up. And I’m glad I did because I never would have thought to ask about my ex.

Follow the breadcrumbs Spirit leaves out for you. Trust your intuition. Say yes to invitations that take you out of your comfort zone. You might just get the answer you didn’t know you needed.

Make a wish

Did you ever wish on a star? Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…

Or make a wish while throwing a coin into a fountain or well?

Do you still make wishes?

Wishing on a star is like sending our intention out to the Universe and then waiting for it to manifest with Divine timing. Shakti Gawain, in her book Creative Visualization (an excellent book, BTW), has an exercise where you envision your wish, wrap it in a red balloon and see it flying off into the clear blue sky. And then you forget about it as you allow it to find its way to fulfillment.

Wishing with a coin, you infuse the coin with your intention and then let it go as you toss it into the well or fountain. You give your wish to the Universe and then let it go. You don’t sit down next to the well, leaning your back up against it, waiting. You walk away. You don’t go back day after day, tossing in coin after coin; you trust.

The best intentions are infused with feeling. Can you feel what it will be like when your wish comes true? Can you live with gratitude today for what is coming your way in the future? Can you live as if your dream has already been realized?

Go ahead. Make a wish—either on a star or in a fountain or just sitting in a meditative state. Bring as much real emotion to it as you can. Get your imagination involved as you see yourself living your dream. And then wait with a spirit of gratitude for it to manifest with Divine timing.

“I’m not going to share my chart,” I told the teacher of my Clinical Pastoral Education class. It was as much a trust exercise as anything else, but showing the chart I had made of my family’s disfunction made me too ashamed. Eveyrone else shared theirs, but I flat-out refused.

What is it that you’ve never told anyone? Or that very few people know about you? Drug use? Emotional infedelity? How many sexual partners you’ve had? Maybe a sexual fantasy? Or were you ever in jail for shoplifting? Declared bankruptcy? Had a pregnancy terminated?

We keep secrets because we worry about what other people will think of us. We assume they’ll judge us harshly. But recent research shows that those fears are overblown. In fact, people are much more kind that we realize. Instead of focusing on what we’ve revealed, they see the courage it took to open up. Others value our honesty, trust, and vulnerability.

In fact, the research showed that it didn’t matter who the secrets were told to. Strangers, acquaintances, close friends, romantic partners, or family members, all judged the secret-keeper less harshly than they anticipated.

We fear darker secrets will garner worse judgments and that simply wasn’t the case in the study. You never learned to ride a bike? You exchanged sexy emails with an old fling after you were married? The people hearing the secrets felt the telling also revealed warmth, trust, and honesty. And those exposing something long hidden felt a burden had been lifted.

So, what is it you’ve been afraid to reveal? It’s scary to think about, isn’t it? I’ll go first. What I was afraid to share with my classmates was that my family has a history of unemployment, alcoholism, and bipolar disorder. What about something more personal? I was once almost sued for plagerism. I tried LSD back in the 70s.

And, this one hurts to admit, for as much as I think babies are magical, I don’t like taking care of them for more than about an hour. I may wait for a bit to tell that to my son and daughter-in-law. Research is one thing, but I’m only human.

“I have someone who needs to talk to you,” Robert said. “I think he has the gift of mediumship, but he’s afraid of evil spirits.”

I was chatting with a fellow energy worker last week. He and I do similar work, but dead people never talk to him, so he had no idea what to tell his friend.

Are there evil spirits? Demons? Ghosts?

Here’s the scoop. I have never encountered a malevolent entity. I have lived and worked in places that were haunted or had poltergeists. What we might call a “ghost” is the energy of a being that is trapped—the energy, not the person. The person has died and their soul has gone back to where it came from, but some of their energy remains. It’s kind of like when you turn off the television and there’s a faint light that can still be seen for a bit. That person’s energy is stuck replaying an action, like walking down a hall or sitting on the end of a bed, for example.

If we react to that energy with fear, it can become more powerful. We feed it with our energy. In the movies and on TV, there may be characters yelling at a “ghost,” Get out! This angry energy also feeds it. Feed it enough and we experience poltergeist activity. I had one who hammered nails into the walls of the stairway. I’d take them out, it would hammer them back in. I was terrified of going onto the basement stairs at night, which fed that activity. Eventually, it started moving tools, too.

The more we feed it negative energies like fear and anger, the more that energy grows. It’s exactly like when we’re in an argument with someone and the angrier they get, the angrier we get. Or if we’re in a scary situation with someone, anything from walking down a dark alley to watching a creepy movie, our fears feed off each other and increases it.

So, what can you do? Don’t panic. Don’t yell. The first step is to realize that just like when we’re angry or scared, it needs love. It needs calm reassurance. Send it love and light. See it for what it is: stuck energy.

Think of it like the hologram of Princess Leia being projected out of R2D2 in the very first Star Wars movie. It’s simply hanging around doing the same thing over and over on a loop,

Of course, that can be easier said than done. If you need help, you can always ask a professional. A professional will gently guide the energy on its way. Once done, your space will feel clear and bright.

The owl and the lark got married and in the afternoon they danced.

It was also a reminder that in small ways, opposites attract. The miser may be initially attracted to the spender because it feels good to treat yourself. The homebody may like the adventurer’s spirit for a while. But eventually, we revert to our true selves and find opposites annoy more than attract.

Research has found that in most ways, opposites do not attract. We tend to find friends and spouses who match our age, political views, religiosity, levels of education, and typically IQ levels. Is this true of most of your friends? How about your spouse or long-term partner?

This time of year, we look to make changes in our life. We want to weigh less, save more, get organized, and spend more time with family and friends. We want to start a journaling or meditation practice to improve our mental and spiritual health. What’s on your list? Have you blown it already?

Look, if you wanted to write, you would probably already be doing it. How can you create a goal that honors who you are? How can you be more authentically you? I mean, if you like to write, join a writers’ group. If you prefer to express yourself in some other creative way, look for like-minded people. Sing in a community choir. Find a photography club.

If you don’t like running, maybe you like to dance. Try a Zumba class. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to sign up a second time.

Gretchen Rubin wrote a great book, The Happiness Project. She spent a year trying new things for one month only. After reading the book, I followed her example. One of the things I did was write a novel. I liked writing so much, I now write a book every year. Another thing I tried was planking everyday for two minutes. Guess what I no longer do.

Try something new for a month. If you enjoy it, you’ll feel more authentic. And if you can find a group of people to do it with, people who enjoy the same thing as you, it’s a bonus.

How was your 2023? What word or couple of words would you use to describe it?
I survived? That’s fine. As a matter of fact, depending on your circumstances, that might have been a monumental accomplishment.

Me? I’d say Life Events: my son’s son was born in May; my daughter got married in July. And also Travel: I went to Las Vegas twice; Upstate New York; Cancun; New Hampshire; all over Wisconsin; Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; Alabama; and into Chicago to the Magic Lounge and the Mercury Theater where we had tickets for the season. I feel like I was away almost as much as I was home.

What word would you like leading you into 2024?

I’m choosing Presence. I spent 2023 dashing off to the north, south, east, and west of the United States and I helped plan a wedding. But I wasn’t wholly present. The planning that went into each event and trip kept me in the future rather than the here-and-now. I’d like to resume my meditation practice, and maybe spend a few more minutes each day journaling. And although reading fiction takes me into another world, I’d like to get back to reading a book a week. This is the first year ever I didn’t accomplish that.

Obviously, the word you come up with will be best for you, but if you need some ideas, here are some to consider.

• Focus
• Kindness
• Action
• Joy
• Motivation
• Adventure
• Optimism
• Peace
• Self-worth
• Love
• Spirituality
• Health

I prefer to choose one word, but you might find a quote more inspirational.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. – Helen Keller

Or add some sass to your inspiration.
Whatever you do, give 100%, unless you’re giving blood.

I’m trying to be less of an asshole than I was yesterday. Baby steps.

Word, phrase or sentence, now is the time to choose the tone and energy of this brand-spanking-new year.  Decide, write it down, and place it where you’ll see it to remind yourself of the direction you intend to go.

Here we are, in the middle of the holiday whirlwind, that perfect storm of joy and stress.

And to make matters worse, Mercury is retrograde until January first, this time in Capricorn. You might have some issues with money (more than usual), how you talk to people, and your travel plans. Ugh.

But Mercury retrograde also offers us the opportunity to sort things out and what better timing than before the new year starts. Review 2023. Finish up any unfinish business. Let go of things that don’t fit your plans for 2024. Clear out the old, both physical and emotional, to make way for a fresh start. What needs a closer look before you move forward?

Try not to focus on the chaos that Mercury retrograde can bring. Instead, ask how you can deepen your spiritual journey. Here are some ideas.

• Sloooooow dooooown.
• Reflect on 2023.
• Find gratitude and embody it.
• Do a cord-cutting ritual on anything that you want to leave behind.
• Work with the full moon in Cancer on December 27. Practice radical self-care. Ask What does my emotional self need?  And What is my intuition telling me?
• Get ready to set new intentions on January 1^st. Make them meaningful and powerful.

And, finally, join our Facebook Live next Sunday, 12/31/2023, when I will be pulling cards to answer the question of what you can expect in the coming year. Don’t miss this powerful event.