The Ectosphere

[rowan says] Psi Alphabet: A is for Afterlife

2012-02-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

"Der Weg ins Jenseits"
("Journey to the Afterlife")
by Hieronymous Bosch.

How do you define the afterlife?

Of course, that depends a good deal on what you believe in. People who cleave to religious faith have their paths "after life" more or less laid out for them depending upon the tenets of their chosen holy books and leaders. Other spiritual types who don't go in for organized religion may believe in a return to a giant pool of energy, or to a regenerative cycle of life wherein one is reborn. Those who don't believe there is an afterlife pretty much assume we'll all become compost of some sort or another.

And really, all of these ideas have great merit. I wouldn't mind going to heaven. As a sometimes gardener, I wouldn't mind becoming compost, which is, in some ways, a special kind of reincarnation, is it not? I don't want to debate among these theories because they all provide a (mostly) positive account of life after death that I find comforting.

But some people undergo what is called a "near-death experience" or NDE, in which they die for a measurable period of time, are resuscitated, then come back with stories of visiting places where souls might go after they die while they were scientifically determined to be brain dead.

Scientifically, there's much to debate of late about the afterlife. In 2012, radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long published his book, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences, which really puts to task the observations of all manner of physicians (neurologists, cardiologists, emergency room doctors) who believe that near-death experiences can be explained purely by medical means (i.e., drug-induced hallucinations). Long's book uncovers research of thousands of first-hand NDE accounts in a fairly scientific attempt to reveal what medical evidence has failed to explain in the past, highlighting that medical explanations for NDEs can be disproven, revealing the possibility of the afterlife even if we can't measure it empirically yet.

Science podcaster Alex Tsakiris, a strong supporter of Dr. Long's, has hosted dozens, if not hundreds, of debates on the afterlife as well at his very interesting program, Skeptiko: Science at the Tipping Point. I know I've found his NDE debates not only lively but bold in their attempts to ferret out real scientific theory and method around subjects like near-death experiences and the afterlife, which have previously fallen under more dubious scientific inquiry.

The stories are fascinating regardless one's position on the debates. Perhaps one of the most intriguing near-death experiences I've ever heard reported was the story of Maria's Shoe which seems to defy all scientific and medical explanation.

Culturally, the near-death experience came into "fashion" after Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (On Life After Death, The Wheel of Life) and Raymond Moody (Life After Life) turned out books that explored the possibility of life after death in the 1970s. People began to appear on television talk shows sharing their experiences of floating above their own dead bodies, walking toward a light and conversing with dead loved ones before making the trip back to the land of the living. This was also the time the New Age movement gained traction, urging a union between the spiritual and the scientific; followers eagerly embraced the metaphysical ideas behind near-death experiences and visions of the afterlife.

The traditional scientific community, however, did not embrace these ideas and both groups remain divided in ideology. Still, new technologies in hospitals have been used to measure situations where near-death experiences might occur, and some evidence points to a renewed need for study into a new arena of scientific inquiry--consciousness itself--as a result.

It's really hard to debate controversies and misconceptions about the afterlife these days without getting caught up in that same division between the spiritual and the empirical. Still, there's growing scientific evidence to suggest that there may very well be dimensions beyond our corporeal life that exist for our souls after we physically die. And there's still division even among the religious and the spiritual as to whether this points to God or consciousness or something else entirely. According to one source, nearly 95 percent of evangelical Christians reject the possibility of near-death experiences.

So the controversies brew and will continue to until someone or something comes along to show unequivocal proof otherwise. All we have, now, are the anecdotal stories of people who've died and come back, some intriguing scientific research and a lot of resistance to the notion from all sides of the belief spectrum.

How does the discussion about the afterlife fit inside the paranormal?

My feeling is that the question of dimensionality that the study of NDEs raises with regard to the afterlife is more in line with the aims and theories of quantum physics, which places it under the purview of paranormal science. I'm intrigued, in particular, by what Fred Allen Wolf says on the subject of quantum physics and consciousness.

Ghosts, multiple universes, parallel dimensions, time travel: these are all part of that same category of study as well. It would make sense that, with so many people coming forward to share their stories of crossing over into a world linked to some kind of afterlife, whether it is a spiritual experience or not, that these quantum quandaries fit within the bounds of the paranormal.

(Of course, having traveled through "the ectosphere" myself, back and forth in The Borderland, I have to claim a particular bias, but that's okay. After my initial journeys there, I did a ton of reading and discovered so many stories and studies to back up my first-hand experiences that I don't mind if others disagree. I know what I know, scientifically proven or otherwise, and that's good enough for me.)

What do you think?

Outside reading

Dr. Bruce Greyson: "Survival of Bodily Death: Near-Death Experiences" - Esalen Invitational Conference, December 1998

"About Near-Death Experiences" - IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies)

"Celestial Travelers Near-Death Experiences" Home Page

"Religious Interpretations of NDEs" - Dr. David San Filippo

The Spiritual Universe: One Physicist's Vision of Spirit, Soul, Matter and Self - Fred Allen Wolf

[rowan says] Introducing the Psi Alphabet

2012-02-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

In light of the rising popularity of paranormal subjects in our entertainment media, yet despite the fact that curious folks have information virtually at their fingertips, I find it rather curious that people still don't really understand the term "paranormal."

Here's a great way to break down the idea of the paranormal in a way that more accurately defines it (hat tip to Neil McNeill for clarifying this):

If:

A paralegal is someone who works in concert with a lawyer.
A paramedic is someone who works in concert with a doctor.
A para-educator is someone who works in concert with a teacher.

Then:

Paranormal means to work in concert with the normal.

Paranormal subjects generally arise as a blend of scientific theory, observation and philosophy. My aforementioned cohort, Neil McNeill, likes the idea of renaming paranormal research as Psi research. Psi, the 23rd letter in the Greek alphabet, is often used symbolically in quantum physics, which is the school of science probably most aligned with paranormal theory.

Still, as a culture, we struggle to wrap our minds around this way of thinking, often referring to the paranormal as:

"woo woo" (a dismissive comment showing moral and social bias)
"supernatural" (which is aligned not with science but with the occult and other belief systems)
"irrational" (despite scads of scientific studies that show substantial proof to the contrary)
"New Age" (again, a derogatory claim of anti-logical thinking)

Now, I'm no expert on the subject in that I'm not a trained paranormal scientist (and no, that's not a contradiction in terms, folks), but I can certainly share what I've learned ever since I developed my ability to traffic between this world and the world of the Borderland. I can only speak from my own experience, but as a journalist, I've spent more time than most doing research to figure out what fits where on the Psi spectrum.

So... welcome to my informal Psi Alphabet! I'm going to post a couple of entries each month in pursuit of definitions and understanding about the widely various phenomena which fall under the aegis of the paranormal. My goal is to share some insight into the scientific background for each of these phenomena, as well as clear up any misconceptions about the paranormal or discuss the controversies surrounding these phenomena.

Again, I'm not hoping to write the authoritative text on the paranormal here; my hope is to just help ordinary people to distinguish the difference between things which "work in concert with the normal" and things which fall into other categories entirely.

I'll see you next week with my first entry: The Afterlife. In the meantime, write to me if you have a particular subject you'd like me to cover. It could be one that confuses you, one that's controversial, one which you have a lot of doubts about, anything. Chances are, if I don't have direct experience with your topic, I've come across the topic in my research and can shed some light on the subject!

[rowan says] On the GOP debates, Paula Deen and barn raising

2012-01-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

"An Argument from Opposite Premises"
by Ralph Hedley (1913)

So when did our world become so markedly polarized?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

I stopped by the Cup & Saucer recently to bide my time while I waited to pick up my mother from her nearby appointment. While lingering over tea and a magazine, I overhead two people arguing about the GOP political debates. Not discussing. Arguing.

At one point, one guy got up, let out a curse and walked off, sticking his friend with the bill, which he couldn't pay. I loaned him the extra five bucks, kind of chuckling when I told him, lightheartedly, how it's just not worth the energy to get that worked up about politics.

He looked at me wryly and said, "Oh, you're one of those people." I asked him what he meant, and he said, "You know, someone who says they aren't political so they can be absolved of any blame when the wrong guy gets into office."

That could have made me upset but, really, I felt sorry for the guy. I'm not apathetic, by any means. I think political debate is critical to democracy. I believe people should talk more about politics, not less. But talk, not fight.

Beating our heads against a brick wall

When we fight with friends and family over politics, does it really change the greater society? I suppose the idealists among us would say it's a worthwhile fight, but when there's no intent on either side (because lines have been drawn in the sand, right?) to listen, no desire to understand one another, how can that change anything?

(I guess my Generation Xer slip is showing, eh?)

Allow me this much. I believe that all this collective stress we're undergoing as a culture, especially in an election year on the heels of a crummy economy, is a terrible waste of psychic energy. Most people I know are not particularly flexible about their political opinions, which means that the chance for a meaningful discussion about politics is all but impossible. Things have really crossed over into the black and white, the gray areas of life nearly obliterated by our collective taking up of sides.

"Helping the Homeless" by Ed Yourdon (2008).
CCA-SA 2.0 Generic license

Why go there? Why take all that psychic capital and sink it into a useless circular quarrel when you could take the same energy and focus it on giving people a helping hand? Why not open a door for a mother with a stroller? Give a hot cup of coffee to a homeless person. Practice patience while waiting in line so that, when it's your turn at the counter, you can offer the clerk on the other side a smile and a thumbs up for a job well done. Hug your loved ones at the end of the day for no good reason. Why not spend your energy in that way instead?

I know, I know. Some will say that's precisely what's wrong with our culture, that we are apathetic because we don't engage ourselves in political discourse at all. I'm not saying that the discourse itself is the problem; the problem is that we don't know how to go about it anymore in a way that shows we know how to listen, to respect and to be thoughtful.

With the loss of newspapers as a more balanced source of political information, with the New Journalism being a vapid caricature of the values of the original Fourth Estate, and with the way we've handed our social skills over to the Internet, we've lost our ability to be civil about anything, it seems.

Peace begins with community building

As I left to pick up my mother, I walked past a small storefront which displayed a trio of historical photographs. One of them showed a dozen or so men helping to push up the framed-in wall of a newly built barn. As I recall, barn raisings were not originally the job of a construction company; they were symbolic gatherings of neighborhood volunteers to help a family start their homestead. It made me wonder; unless we are functioning in a state of emergency, how often do we really engage in togetherness on the community level?

Related: Later that day at the store, I overheard two women in the grocery store line pointing at the magazine rack and talking--no, laughing--about the recent buzz on Southern cook, Paula Deen. She'd announced she'd developed Type 2 Diabetes and had taken on a sponsorship with an insulin company.

"Paula Deen " by dbking (2010).
CCA 2.0 Generic license.

I don't know much about Paula Deen. I don't watch Food TV. I'm not from the South. But neither do I live in a cave. I know that she's famous for having a bit of a love affair with butter and fried foods, that she's often the butt of jokes when it comes to healthy eating, and that she's really good at putting her face on kitchen merchandise.

Regardless, I don't feel it's okay to judge her for developing diabetes. I can see the impulse to rush to judgment, but the fact is that none of us really know Paula Deen that well. We know her persona from TV, but that doesn't mean we have insight into her 24-7 lifestyle. Nor can any of us presume to know for certain that her lifestyle did, in fact, cause her to develop diabetes (take a look at the risk factors here).

How many of us really understand
how genetics works?

Remembering what we don't know

I don't know much about my genetic predispositions, as I have no idea if my biological parents are still alive, and if they are, what their health issues are. So there's always a chance that I might have diabetes in my genes and not even know it.

Some people can have healthy habits their entire lives and still succumb to diabetes or other life-threatening conditions. It happens all the time, in fact. What about the guy that my editor Christopher knew who jogged five miles a day, then dropped dead on his treadmill? Or the beautiful girl in that article I wrote about AIDS and teens, Kaycee, who eventually died, after years of scorn from her family and peers, from HIV-related infections she'd suffered via a blood transfusion she'd received after a terrible car accident.

Oh, how we love to tear down our idols

To hear people yukking it up over Paula Deen's misfortune is really disquieting. She's only just begun her own regimens and lifestyle changes, as well as her campaign to help people deal with, maybe even prevent, diabetes. And as luck would have it, she's a public person, so there's no hope for her to do this work on the sly. It's a little soon to know whether she, as a "brand" or "example," will have a good influence over people's choices, but why not give her some time to make that happen? Sometimes the best examples come from those who've been to the dark side.

I keep coming back to a larger question:

When somebody we don't--can't--really know falls to misfortune like a diabetes diagnosis, does it affect you or me directly? Usually not. It's those we are closest to that matter, not some TV chef we'll never meet in person.

"Romantic and Atmospheric Grave"
by Helen Kendrick Johnson (1990).

You and I are dying right now

Each of us spends our entire life dying in some way. Yep, you heard me right. Dying. Every time we encounter a toxin, enter into risky behavior (which includes driving a car or having a glass of wine) or do things we love, like travel abroad, we risk cutting our lives short. All the best intentions in the world, all the healthiest habits we engage in still cannot promise us immortality. All that these good choices can do is help us delay our shared ultimate outcome: death.

Not to mention how ludicrous it is to assert that some of us deserve better or worse outcomes based on assumptions about lifestyle that none of us have any right to make.

As if any of this really matters

Listen, I met a girl in the Borderland who'd died of a head injury; I helped her cross over. Eventually she came back to pay me a visit, and during that time, I noticed that her head injury had completely vanished. When I asked about it, she explained quite simply: "The pain fell away and took the wound with it." I also ran into another soul who had not lived so innocent a life, having spent a few years in jail for pimping prostitutes. While in jail, another inmate cut his cheek deeply with a knife, leaving a deeply embedded scar that disfigured his lips and nose. When he came to me astrally, long after he'd died, his cheek was completely healed. How could I know what that looked like? I'd only seen him with the scar on his face while he was alive.

It got me to thinking: maybe all the aches and pains and scars and disfigurements we endure in life are just physical reminders of lessons to be learned. Maybe, if we learn them, we are rewarded in the afterlife with freedom from these visual reminders. So, in light of all this, maybe all this fighting, this harsh judgmentalism, is for nothing. And if it is, wouldn't it be a shame to spend so much of our psychic capital on it while we are still alive?

Choosing the high road of compassion

So while we're in this station of life, this Here and Now we share, I think it's worth it for all of us to think about why we react so quickly and with so little compassion to others' misfortunes, why we can no longer respectfully disagree about societal and philosophical ideals. What do we hope to gain as individuals from these negative behaviors?

"Barn Raising" by John Boyd (1908).

It's not so much a case of minding our own business. It's just that we would all do much better to refocus our attention on the ways we could boost our own physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual energies in order to live as many years as possible. And to live, ideally, as a community.

Living long means many more opportunities to raise barns, donate pennies to the cause, make finger paintings with our kids and embrace those people who truly bring joy into our lives.

Unlike quarreling and judgmental behavior, these acts of good intention are never a waste of time.

[rowan says] What does it mean to be a lightworker?

2012-01-20T08:43:00.000-08:00

"This morning we caught a rainbow"
by Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic (2008)
CC Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Yesterday I overheard someone telling their friend at the bus stop that they were studying to become a certified lightworker.

I'm unsure if this is a good or bad thing. What I mean is this: I don't think anyone needs to be certified as a lightworker in order to provide that kind of service. After all, it's from Wiktionary that we get this definition:

"A person driven and motivated to do work which makes the world a better place, improves peoples' lives, and/or elevates people to a higher level of consciousness."

Who doesn't fit this category? Well, let's see. Criminals (convicted or still at large). I would say politicians, but many of them really do think they are helping make the world a better place (and let's not go without crediting those politicians who do so, indeed!). Other than that, I can't imagine any other souls out in the world who aren't intrinsically motivated to do good.

Which makes me suspicious about those who would seek certification for it. Why not become a priest, instead? Or a social worker? Or a volunteer? Or a philanthropist? Or, if you work in healing, might it be better to study reiki or get training in sacrocranial massage or develop a meditation practice? Or does this mean that, if you don't qualify as a certified lightworker, you are somehow exempt from doing legitimate good works, even just for the fun of it?

I'm uncertain about the term "lightworker" itself because, in a way, it elevates the idea of practicing compassion in a way that might exclude people who are already doing so just as an extension of their worldview and personal character. If we all had to suddenly become certified to be lightworkers, then those of us who didn't become lightworkers might be seen as less, I don't know, powerful or legitimate? What about those people who are psychic mediums? How is it possible to certify those who carry that skill set? And do we really need the official term, "lightworker," as a kind of calling card title in order to care about one another?

I don't think so. In fact, I think that anyone who pays to be certified as a "lightworker" is probably participating (unwittingly) in a scam. I don't hold much stock in people who are suddenly qualified to teach, define and regulate lightwork for a price. I think it is far more important for all of us to just work our own personal light however we can. That might mean any number of ways that are completely different from each other. A shaman is a lightworker. So is a palliative care nurse. So are dogs trained to assist others. Children, unless they have been psychically damaged, are lightworkers without even trying at all. The bus driver who makes sure the front seats are open for the elderly and disabled? He or she is a lightworker, too.

My wish is that those of you reading this post think about what the term, lightworker, means to you. And then I hope you'll imagine ways in which you are already bringing your own light into the world, because you are. Maybe you make jewelry that makes others feel good about themselves, or put love notes into the morning lunch bags, or share your experiences at star parties with others who want to learn more. You don't need to go through a course or a formal round of study to be a lightworker. All you need to do is share even just a little of your light.

Blackout to protest SOPA and SPIPA

2012-01-17T22:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.stopthewall.us/?gclid=CIm_v9j32K0CFQp9hwodwFOFlA

[rowan speaks] Paranormal TV from a sensitive point of view

2012-01-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

I'm old enough to remember these
black and white test patterns!

When I was sick last week, I watched a spate of paranormal TV shows. I'm not sure why I did except that, maybe, I was that bored?

Or maybe I was just curious how others perceived what I now know to be the multiverse, or layers of dimensional reality butting up adjacent to one another (the Borderland being the prime example of such a layer outside the dimension of the organic living world we all share).

Most of these shows leave me pretty flat because:

There's such an emphasis on technology that I think the "hunters" are missing the real action
So many of these shows invade a space but don't offer solutions to the people who live there
Too many times the phenomena are defined by religious influence and interpretation
The psychics are often characterized as old-time gypsy fortune tellers

Wow, don't I sound like a skeptic? Let me, as a sensitive, break these points out for you.

Some investigators still swear by the old standby:
the Radio Shack tape recorder.

1. There are days when I think, Please, let the veil fall away, even for five minutes, so that people will see what I see and know what I know! So I'm all for science focusing on the unexplained and being used for debunking things. Clearly, so many people need proof.

But sometimes I find that the recorders and devices these investigators use seem to take up all their attention. What about their own powers of observation? They set up this example of evidence seeking that ordinary people think is the only way to measure paranormal phenomena. What ever happened to just sitting in a room in the dark for an hour or two and listening? And I'm not talking seances here.

Granted, human beings are flawed individuals and things like pareidolia happen, so first-hand experience is unreliable. But so are machines: they can misfire, break or produce "results" which are nothing more than unaccounted for visual or auditory noise arising from perfectly normal atmospheric stimuli.

And these investigators spend so much time analyzing their evidence that I wonder how much of the outcome is wishful thinking. When they play back those EVPs, I can never tell what's being "said," but they sure think they can. And when they show orbs in live camera shots, my first assumption is "moths," not spirits.

I know these folks are "doing it for science" and I'm okay with that. But it's like the situation where the pregnant woman is in labor at the hospital and the baby's father is staring at the EKG machine, informing her she's having contractions, like she doesn't know this already...
In a nutshell, these shows fail to educate people on how to better use their own sensory powers of observation, and that's what makes me sad. We could all stand to trust our intuition a lot more.

2. I think that if a group has been called upon to investigate a location that they should do it with the intent of helping those people through whatever crisis they are experiencing. There always seems to be a crisis, of fear, illness, abuse, anger, bad overall energy... why does this go ignored by some investigators?

If you were asked to help a family who couldn't afford to sell their house but who were afraid to live there all the same, wouldn't you want to give them some options for overcoming their fears? Maybe what's dogging the family isn't paranormal at all, maybe it's psychological, or chemical, or physiological... maybe telling the family they do (or don't) have a ghost doesn't make a darned bit of difference anyway, not if they are left without tools for dealing with the problem after the crew packs up.

I do applaud those shows which ask therapists to intervene, as well as those shows which share extended outcomes so that viewers can see whether things have changed for the families in crisis.

"Demon Mask" (1920)

3. If I hear another investigator call the negative energy in a space a demon, I think I might scream! Demons (and angels) are constructs of theology; they are extensions of belief systems that not everyone subscribes to. I find so much of religion is about using fear to control people, and the use of these evocative, moralistic labels has certainly proven that practice right.

If you believe in demons, Heaven and Hell, that's fine. It's your business. But for me, there ain't such a thing as a demon. And let me tell you, I've seen some pretty scary-ass things. But I've also seen some really beautiful things, and I wouldn't characterize them as angels.

What there is is energy--negative, neutral or positive--and vibration/frequency--running from way down low to the highest high. Packaging a certain kind of energy with a certain level of vibration can result in the experience of any number of entities: regular ol' living human beings, earthbound souls, shadow figures, things seen only out of the corner of one's eye, spirits who travel multidimensionally, the embodiment of naturally occurring electromagnetism, optical illusions, even environmentally-induced hallucinations. Embodied energy may or may not be sentient, as well, for energy possesses its own level of intelligence.

Likewise, if you combine certain kinds of energy and certain levels of vibration inside one space or embodiment, you can expect to experience anything from the darkest primal gut response to the most rapturous, ecstatic response, and it can be felt externally, internally or both. It all just depends on the kind of energy you happen to be packing naturally and the frequency at which it vibrates.

We are all conduits, made of energy and conducting it. We exchange energy with all other things, both living and inanimate, whether we intend it or not. Energy influences our emotions and moods, it gives us physical sensations, and it can be cumulative all the way to the cellular level. There is toxic energy and there is healing energy. Sometimes the energy exchange between two people living under one roof can be lopsided, sending one into a depression while the other gets along just fine; that might even be the sign of a psychically vampiric relationship (and not a demonic possession). And sometimes the energy comes shooting straight out of the earth itself in such a steady stream that it can't help but mess with the energy fields of everything and everyone in its path.

I don't have a problem with the idea of cleansing spaces or healing victims of their psychic traumas to rebalance energy; I think waving a sage wand around, issuing prayers and sprinkling holy water is lovely and wholesome. Just don't assume a person is possessed by a demon when, in my reality and in the reality of many, many other nonreligious people, there is actually an imbalance in energy and vibration at hand that needs resolving.

And enough with the Heaven and Hell talk, as well. If Hell were a place far below us, a raging pit of fire filled with demons, how come so many people have spaces haunted by these so-called demons in their attics? No, these vicious imps of the underworld didn't surf a wave of molten evil up from beneath the earth to wreak havoc on us because, let's face it, they don't exist, and neither does Hell. Heaven and Hell are metaphoric constructs, peeps. Again, if you're religious and it works for you, then you can just ignore me, but someone has to speak out for the rest of us.

"Gypsy Woman" (1910) by
Artur Timótheo da Costa.

4. I really hate it when a psychic arrives on the scene and she's wearing all black, with multiple layers of crystal jewelry around her neck and on her fingers, and she's (it's almost always a she, right?) got these tattoos or piercings and speaks with some sort of gypsy accent or swears like a sailor...

Huh? People who can transit between dimensions really don't need a uniform or a persona to do it. In fact, most people I know who can do this are kind of private about it and really don't want to be the town freak.

I know this is probably the fault of television producers who want to make their show "authentic," but it's the psychics that arrive on the scene who look like ordinary people who I'm more likely to believe, and so should you.

[rowan says] Resolutions?

2012-01-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

"Black Tourmaline"
CC-BY-SA-3.0 Attribution:
Rob Lavinsky, http://www.irocks.com/

Sorry not to post last Friday, I was down with a virus big time! But here are ten things I'd like to do in 2012 (or do more often, or do better).

1. "Detox" my crystals more often. (Probably a good thing to do if I want to avoid more viruses in the future!)

2. Keep a dream journal. Or, rather, be more regular about keeping the one I already have.

3. Take more first responder classes to keep up with new technology etc.

4. Make homemade dog biscuits for Joe.

5. Learn to bead. I keep getting these crystal pendants from Frankie that deserve to be worn!

"Handmade book"
CC-BY-SA-2.0 Attribution: Kelly Taylor

6. Make at least one Lost & Found deadline a day ahead this year (just to mess with my editor Christopher!).

7. Do a feng shui cleansing of the apartment more than once a year! Zoinks!

8. Work harder at lucid dreaming.

9. More home cooking! Frankie and I are hoping to share a CSA subscription this spring.

10. Study up on the latest in near-death experience research (there's so much out there that's new!).

[rowan says] Peace and light

2011-12-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

"Moonlight Night" (1896) by Ilya Repin.

Wishing you Peace and Light for your holiday season. See you next week with New Year's resolutions!!!
Rowan

[rowan says] There is nothing to fear about breathing with benefits

2011-12-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

"Meditation" (1326) fresco by Simone Martini.

I was standing in line at the fabric store today, waiting for three yards of fleece to be cut from the bolt, when a woman in line gently nudged me.

"Are you okay?" she asked. She looked concerned, like maybe I was having a stroke or something.

I smiled and chuckled. "Oh, I'm fine. I was just meditating." Because I was. I was thinking about the love of my life, a man who died before his time, someone whose life continues to impact mine in so many positive ways. I miss him so much.

But when I said the word meditating, she gave me a look of shock and horror that made me feel like I was the biggest freak that JoAnn's had ever allowed into the store.

* * *

The idea of meditation makes people uncomfortable in the same way that praying in public makes people uncomfortable. Maybe what we should call meditation is thinking. Or daydreaming. Or being mindful. Or breathing.

The truth is, meditation is something that people do, even unwittingly, at least once a day. That means you have done it or will do it at least once today. Are you shocked and horrified by that statement? Read on.

When might you meditate without knowing it?

During your daily commute. This is why you don't remember most of that 1-hour drive (carpool, train ride) to or from work. You're meditating.
When you are gardening, cooking or making anything. Creativity incorporates mindfulness, intent and focus, all the key aspects of meditation. Even wrapping gifts will bring meditation. Trust me.
Waiting in line. Especially this time of year, you will do a lot of it: at the post office, at the mall, at the grocery store, at the North Pole (at the mall). If you're by yourself, you will meditate without knowing it. Thoughts will move in and out of your head and you will tune out the rest of the world around you, grab an intriguing thought and roll with it for a while. That is meditation.
Intermissions between acts. This one's for parents, especially, who are going to lots of holiday-related events this time of year: band concerts, choir performances, the Nutcracker ballet, the Christmas Carol play and the like. Between performances, your mind will stray. Again, if you are alone (waiting in line for a cookie at the concessions stand or for a stall in the bathroom), you will launch into a little mini meditation without even knowing it.

* * *

"Osho Drive By"
(The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh visits
his subjects in Wasco County, OR, 1982)
by Samvado Gunnar Kossatz

So if everyone meditates, even if they don't mean to, why all the fuss about the idea of practicing meditation?

I suspect it's because meditation is linked with our spiritual selves. We live in a culture (at least in the US) where spirituality is either whack (remember the Rajneeshpuram from the 80s in Oregon?) or too sacrosanct to be expressed outside the walls of holy institutions. Our collective thought process is often quite binary in this way. In Western thinking, something is either this or that, but never the other. And if it is the other, that means it's outside accepted norms, right?

So, guess what? If you admit that you meditate, you may risk people looking at you as if you've just seen a UFO or Sasquatch. Let me tell you, I've fielded enough of these kinds of responses to almost be used to it by now (but I'm not. When people freak out like that woman did today, it just makes me sad for them).

These same people who seize up over the notion of meditation are just as likely to do it, however. Those who pray at night may think of meditation as an Eastern practice that collides with their Western ideology despite the fact that prayer, itself, is a conscious and intentional act of meditation.

* * *

I use the word meditate all the time but find that I regret it almost every time when I use it around people who seem to be on the fence about what they believe. I regret it because I want them to feel good about the notion of being reflective, I want them to know that it is okay to stop themselves in the middle of the chaos of life and just breathe and let the cacophony wash around them like they are a rock in a stream. I want them to find comfort in the idea that meditating is the same as grounding themselves; it is not going "way out there" to any extremity at all, but coiling inward, to one's core, as a way to recharge. Imagine assuming a mental fetal position for the sheer comfort it offers, if that helps. Meditation is healthy, indeed necessary for strong mental and physical health.

I suppose there are other terms I could use instead of meditation:

Thinking is close, but not quite. Thinking is intellectual, from a realm that partners with, but is not, spirituality. Sadly, for some people, thinking is the equivalent of madness. You know the folks who suffer most: they are the ones with racing thoughts which keep them up all night. Thinking, for them, is like taking a day trip into Hell and back.

"Daydreaming of the Kabuki"
(1890) by Toyohara Chikanobu

What about daydreaming? I personally love daydreaming, but I am actively creative as a human being and rely on daydreaming as a method for problem solving. Every human being is creative, but a conscious tapping of this built-in strength isn't always practiced or may even be discouraged in some people. Also and unfortunately, in our productivity-minded culture, daydreaming is regarded as the same as being inefficient, lazy and apathetic. I doubt that renaming meditation as daydreaming would help its (unearned) reputation.

Being mindful strikes me as close, but this phrase, too, has the problem of being associated with Eastern philosophy (i.e. Zen). While the US is home to many thousands of Buddhists, Christianity still casts its wary eye upon the notion of mindfulness as more a technique for yogis than for ordinary people like you and I. Another word that sends many folks bristling: lovingkindness. Somehow there's something attached to this idea that forces it to the fringe of consensual reality. How very sad! Another problem with mindfulness and intent has to do with the notion that good intention is somehow not enough (or, indeed, it is what paves the road to Hell). I'm not sure our collective consciousness here in the West can handle such a paradigm shift, though I personally believe that positive intent is the only active way we can prevent ourselves from building our own personal highways to Hell.

"Betende Hände" (c. 1800s)
by Otto Greiner.

I could call it prayer but then my fundamentalist friends might think I was bastardizing God's ideas or debasing the idea of prayer because prayer is supposed to be about (their) God, whereas meditation's spiritual aspect is really about making contact with whatever higher power you choose to believe in. Let's face it, prayer is a loaded term in our culture.

"Corpse Pose (Shavasana)"

Breathing seems almost right. Breathing is the physical conduit for meditation. Those who do yoga find they are meditating at the end of the session in Savasana (the corpse pose) because that's the way it's supposed to work. Yoga was originally (and still is) practiced as a way to open up the chakras of the body to allow for meditation, after all. It starts with breathing for stillness. The stillness leads to openness and emptiness (ideally). And when you arrive here, you are ready to meditate. Once the breathing leads to this psychic space, some folks will use it as a place to think about one thing in particular as a kind of meditation (very similar to praying), while others will try for erasure of all the thoughts coursing through them in that moment to achieve a pure kind of nothingness and detachment from worries and fears which helps them to relax and slough off the day's stress. I think either goal is worthwhile and believe every person who meditates should follow the path that works best for them.

* * *

How do you know when meditation works? When you leave the experience relaxed, decompressed and filled with positive energy. Seriously; you will feel tingling in your fingertips, the top of your head, your third eye, even your tailbone.

But this is all for nothing if you aren't comfortable with the idea of meditation in the first place. I've heard some people say "I don't believe in meditation" like it's a cult following or something. It's much the same thing that people used to say back in the 1970s about chiropractors or yoga, as if practicing either was somehow linked to blind participation in a particular cult. Of course, chiropracty is about manipulating the spine and yoga is about stretching and freeing energy in the body. Nothing freaky going on in either case, just like there is nothing freaky going on with meditation.

Lotus position

Does the word meditation strike fear and anxiety in you? Does it suggest something that seems counterintuitive to your belief system? At the same time, do you recognize that it might have some positive benefits?

Then don't call it meditation. Call it breathing with benefits.

[rowan says] Remember the survivors

2011-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

"Postcard: Survivors in Reggio Calabria
after the 1908 earthquake" (c. 1920)

Today I'm writing as a first responder, which isn't very paranormal, I know, but for me it's a spiritual thing.

It's the season of giving and this fact demands that we all work hard to remember how good we do have it when there are so many others suffering in the world.

We live in a media-saturated world, so it should be no secret to anyone that nature dishes out catastrophe nearly every day of the week somewhere in the world (and that's not counting all the man-made disasters and violent political collisions that erupt just as often, as well).

Yet, despite all the information afforded us, and the multitude of easy ways we can take action to help those stricken by disaster, we still seem to have a problem with maintaining our collective awareness.

Out of sight, out of mind
One of our collective oversights comes in the form of forgetting. When disasters fade as news stories, that doesn't mean they're resolved.

For instance, Hurricane Katrina's wide swath of physical devastation still requires active reconstruction of entire communities, even if we aren't seeing reportage of it in the news (only those who live in these areas know the awful extent of what still needs to be repaired). New Orleans, just last week, allocated $30 million more in road and street repair grants for a terrible event that happened more than six years ago. There are ongoing challenges for people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with finding homes for displaced pets, as well.

Not only that, but disasters (unlike lightning strikes) do seem to happen in multiples. Most earthquakes have extended series of before- and aftershocks, with some of them inciting tsunamis. Floods may recede, only to come pouring in again with the next storm season. Tornadoes return to the same places, time after time. Volcanoes can cause earthquakes. Lightning storms can cause runaway wildfires, in drought areas in particular. If you took a look at disaster maps of Japan following last spring's earthquake/tsunami/nuclear triple threat, it would be impossible to count (without the aid of a computer) all the follow-up disasters that continue to strike this area of the world.

"Keep Out - This Owner Don't Care - The Block Do!"
(2009) by Bart Everson.

Maybe it's just human nature to presume life has moved forward in these places. In truth, it has... life does, indeed, go on. But let's not oversimplify matters for those who have survived. For those stuck inside the gauntlet of disaster and recovery, "normal" life doesn't go on. A "new normal" takes hold instead. While finding that new normal is a sign of one's own resilience as a human being, in no way does living the new normal repair all the losses, all the grief, all the fear that's left over after disaster strikes. While living inside the reconstruction zone, inside this new normal, survivors are forced to face evidence of these casualties everyday in the form of torn-up infrastructure, rampant crime, resource and provision shortages, job losses and disaster-related illness.

Underreportage
If a tornado wipes out an entire town in the American southwest, and the news doesn't report it, did it happen?

I phrased that as a kind of existential question for a reason. Another problem for us culturally is that we need to be reminded that not all disasters are even reported in the news. As an active member of the media, this really chaps my hide. I annoy my editors all the time when I pull disaster news off the wire and demand that they include it on the front page (usually in place of the celebrity-related crud they end up running).

I say "annoy" because, really, I'm just a columnist; I have no superpowers that allow me to veto their daily decisions about what makes headlines. I know it and they know it, so mostly I'm about as welcome in their editorial meetings as would be a noisy fly.

"Medical donations for African clinic" (2008)

But really, the outcome of underreporting disaster events is pretty depressing. If people of means don't even know about such disasters (i.e., the media doesn't report on them, or provides only buried summaries), then how can they show support for victims by way of services or donations? Money makes this particular world go around; without benefactors, there are no first responders, bottom line.

And if you find the resulting barrage of donation requests following a major disaster tasteless and overdone, just imagine what it's like to survive a terrible catastrophe in a Third World country only to discover nobody's coming to help you and your loved ones to find safety, shelter and the resources to start again.

This week's World Disaster Report alone highlights a number of underreported situations that deserve attention. For instance, did you hear that:

"Cotaló church, Tungurahua Volcano
erupting in the background"
(2006) by Gabriel Many

*The Tungurahua Volcano south of Quito, capital city of Ecuador, has been throwing pyroclastic materials at an alarming rate, forcing nearby residents to evacuate? Tungurahua is prone to extremely violent eruptions, affecting more than 25,000 people. The ash clouds alone are a health threat not only to people but to livestock in the region.

*The Danube River Basin (Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania) is undergoing extreme drought conditions which have made this otherwise busy river nearly impossible to navigate. There are shortages in power supplies and drinking water as a result, plus crop production and the shipping industry have become imperiled by the lack of water.

It doesn't end there. In the last week, there were dangerous landslides in Colombia, flash floods in Australia, blizzards in the UK and moderate earthquakes all along the Ring of Fire, not to mention eruption threats from Gamalama in Indonesia, ongoing low-level earthquakes across India and Level 3 cyclone Alenga forming off the Australian coast. Thailand is only now recovering from major flooding that will cost their government billions to repair, and Turkey is still being hit by aftershocks after last month's quake.

"American Red Cross
Disaster Relief Shirt"

I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, I just think we all need a reminder: if you're looking to do just one good deed this season, why not donate the money you'd spend on a fancy dinner out with your family to the Red Cross? Or give a week's worth of groceries to your local food bank to help out those who lost their home in a house fire across town? Or give blood (especially if your type is rare) or buy blankets, coats and shoes for families displaced by natural disaster?

If you wake up everyday feeling great to be alive, like I do, it can be easy to forget that your reality doesn't necessarily correspond to everybody else's. Try to remember the survivors this season, if you can, and help them in any way you are able, however humble it might be. You just can't know how much it matters to those who are waking up to broken homes, lost loved ones and prospects of the "new normal." Whatever else we do, let's never forget them. By doing so, karma might then look out for us later, right?

[rowan says] FOUND: One spirit guide

2011-12-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

"Six Winged Seraph" (1905) by Mikhail Vrubel.

I first became aware of spirit guides around me when I traveled to Salish in 2009 for the Oyster Shores Conservatory working retreat. Even when I finally decided that was why I was having certain experiences, I still found it to believe I had unseen friends out there in the world looking out after me. If I couldn't see them, how could they be helpful to me?

As I mentioned previously, we live in a "I'll believe it when I see it" culture filled with skeptics. The universe could be conspiring to change all of us at this very moment, but how many of us are actually paying attention or willing to listen for them when they walk through the door?

I don't know too many things for sure, but I do know this. We human beings are walking asleep through Life. We've overslept our alarms. It's time to wake up!

***

So what are spirit guides? Those who believe in a God of some kind will say that God is their spirit guide, or maybe the angels or the seraphim or some other divine entity already sanctioned by organized religion. And they're probably right. It's my understanding that spirit guides will avail themselves to us in whatever forms we are willing to accept on faith. And that makes sense. I mean, I think I'd rather see a spirit guide in the shape of an owl than I would an angel, since I don't really believe in the Christian version of God or angels or demons. But I do believe in the idea of a Creator, and the Creator, for me, is omnipresent in nature.

I suppose the way I see it, now that I've had direct experience, is that spirit guides are sentient energies embodied by spirits or other living things (like animals) who are tuned into our frequencies and who listen when we are praying for someone, or asking for help, or going through a difficult time (like my near-death experience). They step in if they can and, if we let them, they'll assist us however they can. Or else they will empower us, turn our attention to the details in our surroundings, or the feelings that motivate us to do things, or the messages that the universe is regularly sending us, so we might better respond to incoming change or the presence of negative energy or even instances of impending danger.

"St Michael" (1606) by Luca Giordano.

For some people, the grandparent that visits them at the bed's side every Saturday night is their spirit guide. For others, it's the omnipotent and omnipresent St. Michael the Archangel who, with his divine sword, has the exhausting task of protecting all living things everywhere all the time. (Now THAT'S pressure!) And for others, it's the image of a bear ambling through their dreams, or the squirrel who nests in the tree above their house or the vibrating energies of trees guarding sacred spaces like cemeteries.

Whatever form they assume, I'm pretty sure the rule for spirit guides is that everyone has several watching out for them, but most of us aren't aware of them, or if we are, we can't possibly know just how many entities work as our spiritual bodyguards or from what levels of energy they traffic through our lives.

Joe, at my Mom's

I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that animals are apt to be my personal spirit guides. After all, I've always felt that Joe, my service dog, was really not there to help me convalesce as a head trauma patient, but rather as a kind of spiritual guardian. And thank goodness, without his presence I surely would have lost my mind! He sees things that only I can see or sense. It's uncanny.

Since my adventures in Salish more than two years ago, I've uncovered several different animals that I've confirmed are looking out for me as spirit guides.* A couple of years ago, it was the Stellar's Jay that kept drawing my attention.

This week, it's an owl.

***

This is a Barred Owl, fairly common
in our neck of the woods, though often not seen
because it's crepuscular (likes the dusk and dawn)

I was leaving my driveway to head across town late on Tuesday afternoon when I saw it standing in the grass at the edge of my street. Large, fluffy, white, with dark speckles, a rounded head, brilliant yellow eyes. Those eyes! Even in the subdued light of Pacific Northwest dusk (it's dark-dark by 5pm this time of year in Portland), I could see the stunning reflective lenses of its eyes. I slowed down and backed up; I had to take a second look. As soon as I reversed so that the owl stood just adjacent of my car, it leaped into flight, passing right in front of my hood with an intentional slowness. It wasn't homing in on a mouse across the street, it was displaying itself to me: the downy underfeathers, the broad span of wings, the thick leggings sprouting talons. And then it was gone.

I asked, in that moment, "Are you one of my spirit guides?"

That was Tuesday. Today is Friday. I've seen owls about six times since then. Not real owls like the one I saw, but owls everywhere else. I noticed an owl pendant while shopping. In the middle of a TV show I was watching, there was a single random frame of an owl standing there blinking at me; I thought I was imagining things, did a quick rewind, and there it was again, the image having absolutely nothing to do with the program subject at all. Weird. And then I discovered a twig owl in my office that I bought a long time ago from a craft fair and forgot about. There was a hooting early this morning that even Frankie heard from her side of the building and mentioned to me. And the first tube of Christmas wrapping I unearthed from my storage unit? Covered in owls wearing Santa caps.

Sure, it's a coincidence, right? Or is it just the universe conspiring to tell me something?

I believe the latter, frankly. But that's because I don't believe in coincidence.

So let's say the universe is conspiring (which it always is, by the way)... what might its message be? And why employ the owl to deliver it to me? Owls are notoriously scary symbols in folklore, predictors of death and illness and visits from underlords. Some people swear it was their spirit guides who told them (through symbols, dream messages, precognitive moments, even disembodied voices) that they had serious diseases; when they listened, they found out that, indeed, they were ill, but the timing was right and they were able to thwart what could have been a fatal destiny. Immediately I imagined this might be the case.

But I did a good check in this morning during yoga and meditation, and I'm just not feeling like that's the case. If there's one thing I've learned to trust after that fateful trip to Salish, it's that I can and should trust my feelings first. The owl I saw the other day? The real one? It was awe-inspiring and terrible, but in a way that was beautiful and life-affirming for me. It took my breath away. It made me smile. I felt comfort in that moment.

I'm not a believer in superstitions, so I'm not inclined to take the symbol of the now-ubiquitous owl as any kind of omen. What I am inclined to do is this: listen and pay attention. During the noisy holiday season, full of Christmas cards, packages delivered via UPS, nonstop Christmas music stations, advertising jingles, Salvation Army Santas and ten-deep lines at the mall, someone is trying to get a message through.

*How does one confirm a sighting of a spirit guide? Well, if you think you might be recognizing one for the first time, you ask the universe (or its representative, like, say, the holy Virgin). And if, within a relatively short period of time (a few days), you re-encounter these same entities at least 4 more times, then you really don't have a coincidence anymore, but a pattern.

[rowan says] Birthday magic

2011-11-25T23:11:00.000-08:00

"Sign for the Cup & Saucer Cafe, in southeast
Portland, OR" (2009) by Karla Kaulfuss.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Frankie and I make it a practice never to shop on the day after Thanksgiving. We're the only women who do that, right? : ) Neither of us is big on shopping. I dislike the consumer focus of Black Friday and Frankie is no fan of crowds. We always make sure to spend the day after Turkey Day doing something fun and different and irresponsible, usually over coffee or wine and something yummy to eat.

So, while everyone else was fighting over the sales tables at the mall today, Frankie and I were running my numbers. It's my birthday, so she decided she wanted to explore my numerology.

It all started out innocently enough. We spent most of the day at one of our favorite little hangouts, the Cup & Saucer on Hawthorne. The folks at the C&S know us pretty well and gave us our own thermal carafe after we asked for two orders of their world famous Garden Scramble (to die for!). They knew we were settling in for some serious table camping.

We spread ourselves across the diner table, consulted a big fat book Frankie'd just happened to check out from the Multnomah Public Library earlier in the week and started taking notes on paper napkins.

Admittedly, I'm clueless about things like astrology, tarot and other kinds of esoteric systems. All I really know is that I'm a Sagittarian and Frankie is a Libran, and even then, I'm not even sure what that means, except that I'm pretty easy going and she's pretty outlandish. But after we got started, Frankie made it clear to me: runes, cards, bones, crystals... they're nothing compared to what it takes to dabble in numerology.

Now I can see why people pay experts to draw up their charts. There were so many columns and boxes to fill out that I thought, after three carafes of coffee and a home-baked scone course to boost my blood sugar hours later, that my mind was going to explode.

"De Occulta Philosophia" (1533)

And this is what I've come to understand. People around the world have believed for centuries that, in the moment we are each born, we acquire certain sets of numbers that contain mystical patterns locked into codes. Processing these numbers (i.e., birth date, name number) through a variety of charts and systems, numerologists try to unlock their patterns. If you can imagine that each human being has his or her own DNA-level Fibonacci sequence to decode, numerology might be thought of as one system for deciphering it.

What are numerologists looking for? Meaningful patterns. When our personal numbers fall into certain arrays, they apparently speak volumes about who we are, who we have been and who we will be.

Pretty heady stuff. Do I believe it works? I'd say it works as well as astrology works. Either modality will work if you invest in it, right? Both require some measure of compliance. So I don't disbelieve, but I do think it depends upon whether you are willing to listen.

And I was today. It was my birthday and I was spending it puzzling over mystical numbers with my best friend, some great food and hot coffee.

So this is what we came up with for my birth name number using the Chaldean System, one of the numerical charts you can follow to determine your life number.

I used my birth name, Rowan Elaine Dailey.

R + O + W + A + N
2 + 7 + 6 + 1 + 5 = 21
2 + 1 = 3

E + L + A + I + N + E
5 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 5 = 20
2 + 0 = 2

D + A + I + L + E + Y
4 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 5 + 1 = 15
1 + 5 = 6

3 + 2 + 6 = 11

We had to spend a good half hour trying to figure out whether we needed to add the 1 and 1 to make 2 until we realized that 11 is a "master number" which contains all the powers of the numbers 1 and 2. And this is what the book said about that:

"For those with the number 11, you might be described as a dreamer, an idealist, intuitive or an enlightened or spiritual person."

Frankie laughed so hard she gave herself hiccups.

I forced her to pinch that pulse point at the bridge of her nose so she'd stop disrupting the rest of the people sitting in the booths around us. Yes, her hiccups are that loud.

Of course, Frankie found the idea that I could be a spiritual master amusing. This was, for her, a big fat Libran "I-told-you-so" moment. She's been trying to convince me of my own "light" since the day I met her! It was only after I discovered my ability to access the Borderland that I realized how little I believed in before and how much more I have faith in the afterlife now.

I dared her to run her own name (Francine Rebecca Steele) through the gauntlet, and here's what we got:

F + R + A + N + C + I + N + E
8 + 2 + 1 + 5 + 3 + 1 + 5 + 5 = 30
3 + 0 = 3

R + E + B + E + C + C + A
2 + 5 + 2 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 21
2 + 1 = 3

S + T + E + E + L + E
3 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 5 = 25
2 + 5 = 7

3 + 3 + 7 = 13

But, because 13 is not a master number,
1 + 3 = 4
And here was the outcome of that:

"Fours have rich cerebral lives but they need to find ways to relax their intellect; otherwise, their brilliant ideas are fated to live and die in their minds."

It was my turn to break out into disruptive laughter. I found that hard to believe, considering all the time Frankie spent meditating! But when Frankie grabbed the book from me and read out loud,

"Fours make the most loyal friends..."

I confess I couldn't argue that point.

We didn't go through all the different permutations that the book suggested, though there are many other ways to delve into one's personal geometry. I figured after almost four hours the C&S could probably stand for us to give the table back to them. But we finished up by figuring out my destiny number, which is a formula that translates my birthday into a higher meaning. Here's how that worked out:

11 (birth month)
25 (birth day)
1965 (birth year)
11 + 25 + 1965 = 2001
2 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 3

I was a 3.

"Threes are highly creative and expressive, with an abundance of energy, skill and ease in the area of communication. Threes make excellent writers and counselors, in particular."

"Blue candles on birthday cake" (2006)
by Joey Gannon. This file is licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Frankie read this out loud to me, her voice cracking. I looked up and found her smiling at me with mischievous tears in her eyes, the kind that come when she's at a wedding or watching a sappy movie.

Frankie knew... she'd known all along. Of course she had... But so, too, had the numbers...

Happy birthday to me.

-------------------------------------------------

*The Cup & Saucer is a real-life chain of diners located in Portland, Oregon. More info: Cup & Saucer Cafe
-------------------------------------------------

All images used in this blog are public domain unless otherwise noted and credited.

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[rowan says] You can "see" without seeing

2011-11-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

"White Eagle-Hryszko Brothers Building,
Portland OR" (2008) by Ipoellet. This file is
licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5
Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

Over Halloween weekend, I went on a ghost investigation. It was held at a well-known haunted site in Portland: the White Eagle Tavern.*

I wouldn't call this particular event a true investigation as much as I would call it a ghost tour. A real investigation has a limited number of people, very little fanfare, lots of equipment and hours and hours of time spent doing nothing in the silent darkness. On this holiday event, though, there were probably three times the numbers of people there, which added lots of added noise, crowded energy and unnecessary light to the "investigation."

Still, it's a fun tour: the tavern, which remains a hopping place with live music every night until 1:30am, is well over a century old and once housed two brothels, one for "whites" upstairs and one for "coloreds" in the basement. With so many people trafficking this location over such a long period, someone's energy is bound to have been left behind, or trapped there, especially if there have been emotionally traumatic or unresolved events like deaths or murders. And there have been reports of both.

All this to say that while I was there, I met a young woman (I'll call her 'Macy') who was there trying to tap into her own psychic abilities. I felt kind of sorry for Macy because she really needed to come on a night when there wasn't so much activity from the living already present. I know on my first solid ghost investigation I found that the fewer people, the less light and the more quiet it was, the more clearly my first few perceptions emerged.

But she was there, nonetheless, and it was her first time, and I could tell she was a little nervous, so I told her to stick with me, I'd show her some tricks for making the most of the evening.

First, I performed the little ritual I always perform when I enter spaces I know are haunted: I asked for protection from my highest guides and requested that all those who we encountered please respectfully stay in their residence and not follow us home. It sounds a little crazy, but people can collect ghosts like dirt under the treads of their shoes if they're not careful. I'm not sure whether my ritual gave Macy any comfort, but at least I know she, at the very least, didn't go home with any unwelcome hitchhikers.

Then we joined the tour, holding back from the group as it moved from one floor to the next. I instructed Macy to only turn her flashlight on if she needed it to see by. I suggested she close her eyes and breathe deeply, tune into her other senses.

At one point on the main floor, there was a commotion. It turned out that someone had seen a broom tipping over. Suddenly everyone was abuzz, taking pictures and video, all sorts of lights going on and off, flashes blurring the collective vision. Macy was disappointed that we'd hung back, that she didn't see the broom fall herself.

"When the Senses are Shaken" (1796)
by William Blake.

But a funny thing happened when we went upstairs. The crowd pulsed in and out of the so-called "white" brothel, with no reports of anything unusual. As everyone was heading downstairs, Macy and I paused for a moment and sat in the darkness. Nothing happened after five minutes, so we carefully tiptoed our way to the stairs to rejoin the group, which had since entered the basement.

At the top of the stairs, Macy stopped and began sniffing. "Is that your perfume?"

I don't wear perfume.

When I told Macy she'd picked up something, a scent from the Other Side, she didn't respond like I expected. I wanted to high-five her and say "Congratulations!", but she slouched instead and told me, "But I didn't see anything. That's the only thing that counts." For her, the night had been a total bust.

Bestill my beating heart! I tried to console her but it was obvious to me that she had come to the White Eagle that night to see a ghost. I don't think she will believe in her own abilities until she sees one for herself, and in her mind, she didn't that night. Which is really unfortunate.

Even though I've seen more than my fair share of things in the Borderland, I definitely don't take them at face value. I look for secondary impressions like scents, low vibrational sounds and sensations to confirm what I'm seeing. I'm lucky in that I can do this. For someone like Macy, just beginning to tap into her own intuition and instinct, this is still new territory--a set of skills that she'll need to hone if she is to truly trust the nature of her experiences. But she needs to be willing to set aside seeing as the only legitimate skill and open herself up to the strengths of her other senses.

There are so many ways to encounter the Other Side (or, perhaps, the many Other Sides, if you believe in the multiverse like I do). You can smell residual scents (including the odor of death). You can touch an object and feel its energy, even "feel" its narrative come through you. I once felt a cat's tail flicking between my ankles but saw nothing there when I looked.

You can hear voices that aren't picked up by recorders (and vice versa). You can sense thrums of energy or coldness penetrating your body in an otherwise warm space. Your skin can crawl. Your stomach can sour. You can suddenly feel incredibly sad or filled with rage. You can even channel the personalities of others through your own vocalization or by way of automatic writing without even knowing you're doing it.

In none of these cases is the act of seeing required. And yet, you are seeing, through all of your other senses.

I really do despise that common expression, "I'll believe it when I see it." It limits our way of perceiving the world. Human beings have many more than just the standard five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch). Think about it: there's sense of balance, sense of humor, kinesthetic sense, aesthetic sense, geomagnetic sense, sense of rhythm, vibrational sensitivity, common sense, and who knows what other kinds of primitive human sensibility stitched right into each strand of our individual DNA.

"The Human Eye, Rods and Cones"
courtesy Starizona.com

All of us are more sensitive or intuitive than we know. But we live in a time where everything is so visual and literal that images themselves seem to stand alone as absolute proof. Interestingly, "seeing things" can be explained by something called pareidolia, in which the rods and cones in the eyes are forced to readjust to extreme shifts in light, resulting in one's capacity to see things out of the corner of the eye which aren't actually there. And video and still cameras pick up visual images which are mostly always explained by something natural like dust or light flares or reflections. Sometimes seeing something can be the least reliable proof of all.

Macy, if you're reading this, please believe me: smelling the perfume was a good sign. A great sign! It means you're open to information that others wish they could access, but can't.

Sometimes the best way to see anything is to simply close your eyes.

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*The White Eagle Tavern is a real-life haunted location in Portland, Oregon. More info: Pacific Paranormal Research Society
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All images used in this blog are public domain unless otherwise noted and credited.

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[rowan says] Let's get one thing straight: I don't see dead people...

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

"Camille Monet sur son lit de mort"
by Claude Monet (1879)

...except in real life when I'm on site at a disaster like an earthquake or I've gone to the morgue to identify a body....

Somebody asked me if I could "see dead people" the other day and I'm compelled to write a post about it because it's such a common thing for sensitive or empathic or psychic people to say, and yet, it couldn't be further from the truth. Please, even if you're one of these gifted folks, hear me out.

"A Scene in a New York Morgue" by Stanley Fox (1866)

The idea that anyone has a special ability to "see" dead people is a bit of a misconception. Dead people are corpses, lifeless bodies. Anyone can see dead people if they can locate dead bodies. Cops and medical students and doctors and the county coroner see dead people fairly routinely. That doesn't mean that makes them somehow more psychic or special than the rest of us.

I know, I know, it seems like splitting hairs, but it's not.

"A rising column of smoke on a black
background" This photo is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Here's how I see it. A person dies and leaves behind a carcass (sorry, I know that's crass, but it's also a pretty good way to illustrate my point). Modern science shows that the human body loses a tiny, but statistically significant, measure of weight at the moment of corporeal death. If you believe, like I do, that a person is made up of both a physical Self and a conscious Self, then it only stands to reason that when the physical Self dies, the conscious Self vacates that physical space and (ideally) rejoins the energy from which it came (usually understood as circulating in the Other Side). This accounts for the weight loss.

"Zombie dead live" cut from
George Romero's Night of the
Living Dead (1968)

And before I get too much farther, it needs to be said that the soul is NEVER held captive in a dead body (unless you believe in George Romero zombism, which I don't). Even real zombis (those products of voudon practice in the Caribbean, for instance) are actually living people. (Oh, I'm gonna get comments for that one!!!!)

When sensitive folks claim they can see dead people, what they are really saying is that they can see the residual energy of people who were once alive. Call it what you want: ghosts, spirits, souls, apparitions.

I'm not sure how to classify what I see when I go to the Borderland. I've definitely seen ghosts (I like to call them earthbound souls because that's less creepy and more realistic) which can be harmless, innocent folks or they can be more unpleasant renderings of energy that include shadow figures. The one I've encountered in particular had psychic vampirism tendencies.

(Not sure what to make of that? You'll see what I mean in the first book in The Lost & Found series, The Borderland.)

These earthbounds aren't evil because they're stuck on this plane. They're very much in limbo the way they were in life: the logic goes that the happy living person will probably make for a happy earthbound soul, and that a degenerate living person will probably cause a lot of ruckus in the Borderland. Since the world is made up primarily of positive life force, then it can be said that the plane of earthbound souls is likely comprised of positive energy and not the nasty, evil things you see on TV or in the movies.

Now, I've encountered other kinds of energies in the Borderland that I don't think of as ghosts or earthbounds or shadows, all of which are soul remnants that just haven't completed the voyage to the Other Side, for one reason or another. I think of these other energies mostly as spirits, and spirit guides in particular, who have already made the trip to the Other Side and back, and willingly. We might think of them as the gainfully employed energies of the spirit world, the ones who trip the planes fantastic because they have jobs to do: guiding lost earthbounds, helping the living manage crises, whispering wisdom into the sleeping ears of sensitive children, and somesuch.

Some people think of spirits as angels. That's fine. Angels are a religious construct, though (and so are demons). Do I believe in angels and/or demons? No. I'm not a religious person, so while the term angel doesn't offend me, and I don't think of a demon as being separate from the more general negative soul energy you can find out in the Borderland, I think using either term sort of mischaracterizes the way I see the world. I don't think in such black and white terms. All people carry both negative and positive energy in their physical Selves. It's what they do, or don't do, with it that defines us, which means that most of us belong in that gray area between these polar opposites.

So no, I don't see dead people except in the land of the living, the one I share with you. And yes, I do see earthbound souls, but only if I go looking for them, and these might include shadow figures. And while I've never seen the fully formed thought beings known as spirits, I know they exist because I ask them things when I meditate and they give me answers. I can even feel and smell them when they're around, even when I'm not actively seeking them out.

Are these gifts? I think this is the wrong question. Being able to see is a gift to a blind person, right? The right question might be, instead, what can I do with the abilities I do have?

I'll answer this in a coming post because I have friends with all kinds of abilities who think they don't matter because they don't "see" anything. Sounds like you, too? Join me next week when I'll talk about what it means to be sensitive even when you don't "see" or "hear" the things that other psychics do.

All images used in this blog are public domain unless otherwise noted and credited.

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[tamara] Introducing Rowan Cavanagh

2011-10-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

Public domain image: "The New Novel" by Winslow Homer (1877).

"A hero is an ordinary person who performs an ordinary task in an extraordinary situation." —Unknown

It's my pleasure to introduce readers to Rowan Cavanagh, the female protagonist and heroine for my paranormal series, The Lost & Found.

What this blog is about

In the first book in the series, The Borderland, Rowan experiences life-changing events which force her to consider the possibility of a separate, paranormal dimension to her everyday life. My goal as the author of her stories is to share what she learns as she wanders this new path so that you might find some answers to the roadblocks or mysteries in your own life.

Rowan isn't very different from most middle-aged women I know. She has a simple set of beliefs which, up to this point, have served her well enough. She is now at the point in her life when she can look both backward and forward while living in the moment (though her best friend, Frankie, is always getting after her for forgetting the value of Now!). As with anyone encountering a life-altering experience, she must now reconsider all that she believes, knows and/or understands to be real if she is to make any personal progress in the future.

This blog, The Ectosphere, will chronicle that journey for her. Her journey, the one that I give her in her role as both journalist and healer, however fictitious, is not and will not be much different from my own as I compose her stories. What she learns, I'll have learned or be trying to learn. The world of the paranormal is vast and contentious and not without its own challenges. Sorting the probable from the unlikely is going to require a lot of research into case studies prepared by both "believers" and skeptics as well as the perpetual reassessment of what I understand about how the universe (or, maybe, the multiverse) functions. In the act of conjuring the fictitious situations, settings, events and conflicts that Rowan will eventually face in her own stories, I will be, in a sense, and with every pun intended, channeling her persona on this page.

The mission

My plan is to raise a single monthly topic for exploration and, through Rowan's perspective, voice and wit, pull it apart by layers on a weekly basis. The result, with any success, will be a twofold "win-win."

First, Rowan's own persona will come alive for you here on the page in the way that I have come to know her as her sole/soul creator. After all, I have been sharing brainspace with her since 2008 when I started the first draft of The Borderland (the first book in the series) during National Novel Writing Month. Why report my own findings about the paranormal directly to this blog when I could have Rowan take the narrative wheel instead? I adore the woman! She's way more interesting than I am, after all, and my hope is that you'll appreciate her complexity, her compassion and her strong woman's soul through these posts as much as I do when I sit down to write her stories.

Second, by putting Rowan metaphorically to the task of exploring the paranormal as it weaves its ideas into her worldview, I am also making such expeditions my own writerly priority. Writing a series of novels with a single protagonist requires a lot of development in the area of a character's history. I'm crafting a story bible, for instance, to keep information organized and searchable as I explore characters, settings, milieu and all kinds of far-fetched (or not so crazy) concepts. By "channeling" Rowan's ideas, questions, fears and challenges about paranormal subjects—like near-death experiences, shadow people, spirit guides and earthbound souls—in a weekly blog post, I can't help but be more actively engaged in her journey in a way that will make me a better storyteller.

What I don't expect to do is supply spoilers to the stories that unfold in the actual series. Rowan may chatter about friends and family, she may make observations about true-to-life current events, or recount onsite experiences from her forays into emergency responder work, or she may post one of her newspaper columns here for you to read. But she won't reveal critical details about those novels enclosing specific narratives about her journey into illumination, I promise. This blog is not meant to supplant the novels themselves; they are meant to be read for all the good reasons why any reader chooses to tackle a novel. The Ectosphere is meant, instead, to complement the series, to give you a little extra insight into the otherworldly landscape of this extraordinary woman, who is herself a vibrant seeker of light and life, even if she doesn't always know this about herself.

And finally, a word about the difference between a character and her creator... It's a common misconception that characters in novels are thinly disguised versions of the author, but this isn't true at all. Rowan is not me, and I am not Rowan. Rowan can't help but be composed of thoughtforms that originate with me, she can't help but be a product of my experiences, observations, opinions and personal tastes, but she is still a fictional creation wholly separate in identity from me. I don't always believe what Rowan believes, nor do I look like her, nor is my life anything like hers. We may have a few things in common (just as I may have a few things in common with you, the reader), but she is still a creation and not a virtual representation of me.

A little housekeeping

Primarily, the blog posts you'll read here will be written in Rowan's voice and their subject lines will always be preceded by [rowan says]. This way you'll know it's Rowan who's "talking" and not me.

Meanwhile, should I pop in to share news about The Lost & Found or announce an upcoming reading or other event related to the series, I'll precede those entries with [tamara] so that you know it's me saying hello from the real world.

As far as all other blog content is concerned:

1. In the left sidebar, Tamara's Tweets indicates a recent archive from the Ectosphere's twitter account. These will be primarily comments about or links to real-world events. Below that are Real Life Links indicating favorite websites, books, podcasts or other media I regularly consult and recommend as the writer of The Lost & Found. Real Life News is a brief, regularly updated feed of real news stories with content related to the paranormal, just to pique interest.

2. In the right sidebar, you'll find a short biographical citation for both Rowan and myself as well as a small explanation about the blog's name, The Ectosphere.

3. Along the bottom of the blog you'll find ways to subscribe or follow the blog or search it for particular themes.

Finally, the usual ventriloquist's disclaimer: This blog is produced for entertainment purposes only. All characters appearing in this blog are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, outside of editorial commentary regarding current events or popular culture, is purely coincidental.

The door is open

Here is my wish to you, then, reader: May you reveal your own illuminated path while following Rowan into her own dark places. May you discover how Rowan's journey is satisfyingly parallel to your own. And may you find the love, the laughter, the gratitude, the wholeness and the peace that Rowan encounters even as you stumble in resolving your own burning questions.

As Carl Sagan once said: "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

Thanks for reading this blog and participating in Rowan's journey!

Sincerely,

Author Tamara Kaye Sellman