I hear dead people

Again.  In my life.  I have succumbed to the voices.

It started with the plants this time.  Listen to the plants, said the herbalist.  The lady on the plant walk said that gems spoke to her and told her their properties.  Then I found out about Laura Stinchfield, The Pet Psychic on YouTube.  And I started remembering my own weird, strange experiences with animals when I was younger.  And weird, strange experiences with people.

And how I slowly dialed down my ability to tune in to the voices of animals.  In favor of... sanity?  It was much safer to walk around the world not believing that I could understand what animals were saying.  Much safer not to believe that I could influence things with my mind.  That way led to depression.

Therapy.  Getting in touch with my inner child.  Then letting it go.  Travel.  Travel.  Listening to people speak in other languages and experiencing other cultures cleared me for a while.

Love.  Marriage.  Birth birth birth.  Cleared me to a new level.  Brought me to the threshold of believing again, but I resisted.

I don't know what opened me up.  I think it was a video on YouTube of Rupert Sheldrake's study on a psychic parrot.  That made me think, hmmmm....  I recognized how the parrot and the woman talked to each other.  It reminded me of other videos of parrots talking.  And also videos of well-trained dogs.  The way the parrot gives the word before the trainer is even finished giving the cue.  The way dogs perform the action as the trainer is giving the cue.  There is not time for the animal to have thought about what the person is going to say.  The animal is picking up on the intentions of the human.

Watching these videos reminded me of a time in my own life when I spoke with animals.  When I lived with Leyton Cougar, the current director of Wild Spirit Wold Sanctuary, he taught by example how to talk with animals.  He did it naturally with his pets and with the wolves at the sanctuary.  He had a natural rapport with the wolves that is evident to anyone who watches him with them.  He spoke with his animals like they were people and they responded to him with a calm clear energy.  I adopted his way with my own dog, Kenai, who came to the Sanctuary from people who thought he was a wolf, even though he was actually a dog.  Kenai and I had an amazing relationship for fourteen years, that I contribute much of that to his early life out at the wolf ranch and my own learning how to listen to animals.

After that experience at the wolf ranch I returned to college and slowly let go of the idea that I could actually hear the animals.  I studied at the College of Biological Sciences and felt like letting go of that idea was akin to growing up.

There have been a series of recent events that have rekindled my interest in psychic abilities.  I have finally accepted that any and all psychic abilities are not special in any way.  Everyone has these abilities and usually knows at least one person in their family who has some kind of special ability, talent, or gift.

I watched many videos on YouTube about animal communicators and I now realize that this is almost an accepted field.  Almost every veterinarian has or would like to have an animal communicator to send patients to with animals who have problems that are difficult to diagnose or hidden pain.  And *every* animal communicator says the same thing about how they send and receive information... through words and pictures in their mind.

And I've started receiving words and pictures from my animals.  I received a story from my lizard about how she was caught.  She has a regrown tail and I always assumed it was from the person who caught her.  She said that she likes my children and likes children in general, she feels safer around children because she understands their energy and intentions much more clearly than adults.  She said that a child was the one that caught her.  She said that she knew the child.  It was a child who lived in the houses near her home in the desert.  She said that the child was known to other animals as well, that the animals know which children are the ones who are curious about animals.  She said that the child captured her gently and sold her along with a bunch of other lizards to a man who was like a traveling buyer, who traveled around to different towns and offered money for animals like lizards and tortoises and snakes.  Children knew about this man and could earn money for their family by collecting animals.  She said that it was a rough man who handled her in the transportation process who broke her tail.  She said that she understood the child's need and that she was also grateful for life after having gone through such a horrible process.  She thinks that she helped the child get money for its family.  That her life became a scary adventure to help another person but that in the end she is happy to live with us.  We are happy she is with us too and we tell her that every time she comes out.

Then recently another strange thing happened.  We checked out a book at the library called Casey Jones' Fireman: The Story of Sim Webb.  It was strange because it was in the section with the fairy tales, not the biographies, despite the fact that Sim Webb is a real person and the story is mostly factual, with mild reference to the supernatural.  Anyway, the book is a little dense for my 2yo, or so I thought.  She loved it and requested it several times.  Whenever I read this book it made me think of the song from the movie Dumbo about the little cartoon train they called Casey Junior.  I can hear the song from an old record we had as a kid of Disney movie songs.

"Casey Junior's comin' down the tracks!"

That song rattling through my head all the last week.

Then I find out on facebook that a dear sweet friend, who lives down the street, had a nephew, named Casey Junior, commit suicide!  I was so upset for her, as were many many of her friends and there was an outpouring of support on her page.

Then I got this message... from the boy.  I did see a picture of him, but I really don't remember where, it must have been on her facebook page.  I can see his image clearly in front of me.  He's wearing a black hoodie.  He has longish dark brown hair.  I mean the hair is not long, but it's kind of long around his face, kinda spikey longish pieces hanging toward one side of his face.  That's not how it always was, just how it looked because the hoody was pushing the hair around his face.  I think he was squatting or kinda sitting.  He is kinda smiling, but not very big.  His eyes have a relaxed squint to them that his family would recognize as one of their common traits, if they smile you can't see their eyes very well in the picture.

I got a message from him.  The message was that he is okay.  That he wants his family to know that he is okay.  That he didn't mean to.  He did feel sad a lot.  He did feel like he was a burden.  He felt like he was dumb.  He felt like some people were telling him he was dumb and he didn't know how to change that but that it made him feel bad.  He says he's sorry and he really didn't mean to go all the way.  He just wanted to try it, he didn't mean for it to work.  He really loves his family and he feels bad that everyone is so sad.  The reason he was so sad in life was that he didn't think he was smart enough to do what he thought people wanted him to do.  He keeps saying that some of his family are worried about him because he committed suicide and they think that he went to hell but that he's not in hell and that he's okay and that there are lots of other kids where he is at.  He is meeting other kids who did the same thing he did and they are all okay.

And I really want to tell my friend this information, but I think maybe that would be stepping over a boundary.

I have a cousin who also committed suicide.  And for the first time today I really talked to him.  He said that most people who commit suicide feel like a burden and that is why they do it.  He felt like his parents already had their hands full and he didn't know who to turn to and felt out of control.  He didn't like the way he treated his wife and his children.  He didn't know how to control himself.  He was absolutely distraught and felt like a huge burden.

I asked about Hell.  Does it exist?  And he said that there is definitely dark energy and negative fields and that there are people who choose to exist in those realms, but that much of our human understanding of hell is based on human existence and the lessons on earth.

Since I have been communicating with animals I tuned in to what the animals had to say about suicide and I was reminded that animals commit suicide all the time.  Mass suicides of fish and whales happen every year and they do it because they cannot tolerate the conditions on Earth anymore.  In some ways, this is similar to people committing suicide, people cannot tolerate the conditions of their life anymore.

Anyway, the point is that I have officially transformed back in a woo-woo person.  Woot!  It kinda feels good too.  I really enjoy talking to my pets.  But I definitely feel an even greater need to meditate now, to have a daily "grounding" so that I can be able to filter all the many voices that now pull at my skirt.  (Have I started yet?  No!  Only *thinking* about doing it!  lol) Like now I feel major pressure to stop eating meat.  I hear the screams of the animals in a second by tuning into it.  But I also feel the love of all the animals around me.  I also feel more connected to my children because I see how the animals actually speak through the children because the children are so receptive to intuition.

Is Robin Thicke a big dick?

 Who knew our culture would be having such growing pains?  Is the video rapey?  Maybe.

 As soon as my husband saw it he had to do me.  And I him once I saw it.  It's funny, yes.  All the props.  The lamby.  Did he just say "the hottest bitch in here?"  Bitch has almost reached a term of endearment among girlfriends.  And if a husband says that to his wife of eight years it is seriously hot!  And the bodies are beautiful.

But, seriously, why are we not seeing the men's bodies too?! Pharrell in a g-string will be the next hot video.

 You know what part was hot to me? When the woman slapped his face with her foot and he took it. Men take it. I am like a man, in that I take it with my children. I have no choice, I have learned over the years to just take their hits and slaps without hitting back, while still communicating clearly that I do not like it! But it is hot to see a man get slapped in the face and he takes it! Why? I don't know!

I told that to Erik, that I adore imagining him in his past hooligan life getting punched in the face. Images of him drunkenly talking to someone taller than him, with his chin jutting out and then WHAM, down he goes. I don't know why that gets me all aflutter. I think it's his bravado that I admire, that chin up as he careens into life's chaotic events. We joke that he has a whirlwind approach to life. Like he's a kid wheeling both his arms around like windmills, chopping or punching at anything that comes his way, and only looking back after he has sawed through it.

 I saw our dog, Izzy, get punched in the face by a lunatic man whose aggressive hound bitch started a fight that the man finished by punching my dog in the skull with all his might and then launching into a diatribe against pit bulls. But my dog told me she was okay, and she really is super strong, so she has a protective quality to her. She told me that she can take a punch for me. And that is something that is a powerful thing to have in life, a strong ally.

 Are the men in this video protective of the women or are the women like cats who can climb out of any corner? Are the women lambs? Are they both?

 I am thinking of the club scene in Los Angeles. It is a hotbed of gametes. Looking for possible matches. How can you get a potential union as quickly and accurately as possible? Bumping and gyrating and talking, right?

 How important is sex in the daily thoughts and activities of not just the Los Angeles club scene, but all of us? If we are having it often with our beloved does that make us feel more empowered, more sexy? I cannot understand the wisdom of the person wanting to have sex with many different people. That is not my wave. My beloved is my whole self that I grow more connected to as each day takes us further and further down the golden path.

 Which is, apparently, also how Robin Thicke feels about his wife, Paula Patton. They've been married for eight years, I've been married for nine. They have one three-year-old son, we have three children. Robin says that this is a kind of love song to his wife and also (sound of record scratching), please don't forget that my job is an entertainer, and I figured out a way to entertain people really well, so don't be jells.

 He reminds me so much of Ricky Martin! That soft twinkle in the eye.

Anyway, is he a big dick? Is he promoting getting women drunk at clubs and then taking them home and fucking them? Kinda. Maybe not "getting women drunk", but drinking with someone is pretty common before hooking up. (Switch to high school sex ed teacher voice)  And some women really do enjoy going to clubs, meeting men, and having sex with them! They actually have fun doing it too, as long as they feel safe. And it can happen and people can have a lot of fun doing it and it can be a great release if you are a single person who doesn't have a steady sexual partner. There are ways to be safe and still hook up. Lots of women like to hook up with other women because they can have the sexual release and not worry about getting pregnant or certain diseases. If watching Thicke's video or dancing to it at a club makes people want to hook up, then that's great!

 I'm not shouting, but what I'm going to say seems like it should be important so I'm bolding it.  It doesn't matter what song is on or what video is playing, it's just never okay to be pushy in a sexual situation, unless those boundaries have been clearly laid down. So songs and videos are just play and pretend, they are not suggesting that you take advantage of other people, that's just never ok!

 I think Robin Thicke's message about his song is that he is just pretending to do all that stuff because he's an entertainer. What his listeners do on their own time is their own business. Personally, he has a gorgeous wife that he adores, not that it was any of our business to begin with anyway.

 But the part in the video where it says, "Robin Thicke has a big dick"... Isn't that kinda... Oh, it's just entertainment? Got it.

 But how is it culturally relevant? How do people identify with this video? They realize that they themselves are a kind of entertainer in their own lives. What if you wrote that on your bathroom mirror. Your name has a big dick. If you don't have a dick, you can say clit. How would it feel to say that about yourself? To talk about yourself as having the sweetest ass or the most luscious mams. It feels good to say that when you have a partner that sees all of that in you too. It feels even better when you feel that way about yourself too!

 I reluctantly conclude that Robin Thicke is not a dick, not in the sense that he did something stupid. A lot of people are mad at him and are saying that he is promoting men to disregard women's feelings and treat them as sexual objects. But that's not the case here. People can get aroused by that video and not act rude or disrespectful to women. If someone is following songs for relational advice then that person needs help from people around them! I think that's just an excuse that disrespectful people can use, to say that a song influenced them.

 Why "reluctantly conclude"? Because a part of me understands the feminist point-of-view. A point-of-view that says, "Yeah, maybe it is just entertainment. But I still don't like it! I just don't find it entertaining at all! It is morally wrong to be so callous to the effects that these videos do have on young people, whether you care to admit it or not! You say that if someone is looking to a song for relational advice that they need help from people. Some people don't have that help from people, and they end up doing horrible things to people because of irresponsible mass-marketing of culturally damaging messages. People need to be aware that this is happening so that they can work to promote change for our daughters and sons!"

 Yes, that is true, but Robin Thicke is not personally responsible for the popularity of his song that has a message that is similar to probably half of all R&B and rap songs. He is just further evidence of the insatiable sexual appetite of humans! It is our own personal choices and decisions that matter. Those are the only ways we can change culture. We start at the center and work our way out.

What a Kid Wants

At the end of the plant walk today the herbalist invited me to bring my children along on another walk.  "Oh no, they're into guns and digging mines into the earth and general tom-foolery.  Add to that that anything I'm interested in is immediately perceived as uninteresting by the 8yo."  Oh no, my kids would rather run all over the trail, throw rocks, dig in the ground with sticks, pretend to shoot each other, whoop and holler, and destroy any zen balance that may have been present prior to their arrival.  How can this be?  How can I crave peace so much and have children who love to play war?

If I tell my children to listen to the plants and animals and walk softly, will they listen some day?

I figured out what my 8yo wants in a friendship, what he is looking for, by listening to him banter with his friend... his very tolerant friend.  They tease each other back and forth, taking turns and changing subjects randomly and rapidly at times to diffuse the tension if someone went too far in their teasing.  Noah wants a friend that he can tease mercilessly and say bad words to and nonsense phrases and inappropriate raunchy things to, and the friend will tolerate it all.  He is like Donkey, looking for Shrek.  He wants to be annoying to someone who will love him through it.  I recognize myself in that appraisal.  I always thought I was annoying, the annoying little sister was a label I identified with for a long time and during desperate and confusing times in past relationships I felt like I must be an irritating or annoying person.

I remember visiting my cousin, my sister-cousin, we are the same age and our moms are sisters and we have similar features, when I was in my early twenties and she was already in a stable (at the time) relationship.  I remember being mesmerized by how comfortable they were with each other.  It seemed that she could say or do anything and he would stay mellow (I later learned that this was not the case, but from my single-girl perspective, it seemed enchanting.)  I specifically remember a moment where she was sitting behind him as he was chatting and at one point she said, "I just have this overwhelming urge to bite you or slap you, right here on your shoulder.  Can I do it?"  Cool as a cucumber he responds, "Yeah, sure.  Go ahead.  Do it."  So she did, with a little spasm of glee, she slapped him and then maybe bit him, my memory is failing me.  But the point is that he just stayed so calm and cool.  He seemed strong, like he had used his shoulder muscles a lot in his job.  I don't know all the personal details of why they split, but they did, and it really doesn't matter now because she is with the real person who was waiting for her and they have a child together, but that's beside the point.  When I saw my cousin act that way with her fiance, I understood that it was possible for me to meet someone who would be a kind of a sounding board for me, and I did, and I'm married to him.

I see now how even the friendships that are formed when we are a child are all a pre-quel to the Great Love that comes our way in life.  Attachment, trust, bonding, love, are all explored in the friendships of childhood.  Before the hormones kick in, children can love freely all of their companions without any labels attached to them.  The land of teenage-hood feels very foreign and distant to me, so I can't comment much on how to deal with/accept children's sexuality, but the feelings of love and attachment are so clearly explored in childhood friendships, and I see it now.

On the one hand I think, "Should I be that person for Noah, the person that he can say the worst stuff to and will still love him?"  Of course I do, but I don't like it at all when he talks that way and I tell him so!  I don't like cuss words or teasing.  It's not fun for me.  So I can't really fill that role for him.  It's a cleaving, in a way.

Same thing with Micah and his guns.  I just can't relate and I don't like it.  I don't even like the sound of his playing sometimes.  Even though he tells me, "Mom!  I don't mean it!  I'm just playing!"  It's hard to accept it.  It's hard to accept that his way of understanding evil forces in the world is to personify them, to know them inside and out.  But if he can't do it through play, then how else can he do it?  How else can he explore what being alive in this world means?  So I try hard to be tolerant and allow him to play, especially if the only person hearing it is me.  But at the same time I can't help but think, whatever he acts out is what he is practicing to be, so acting out violent or destructive acts would be what he is preparing to do, versus encouraging him to act out positive role models.  Have I done him an injustice by turning a blind eye to his desire to always play the bad guy?  Or does play in children not necessarily indicate their desire to do evil, but maybe a way for them to understand it in order to better deal with its presence in life?

Maybe some day I will be able to comment on some of these questions, but for now these are some of the issues I am exploring.