My Story
(a petite glimpse)*
Of Mice and Me
I have so often hidden. Under creaky staircases. In overstuffed hall and forgotten closets or by squeezing beside the grey disheveled mop, curved straw broom, and oversized dustpan of a utility closet. Hidden right in front of others. Hidden from my shadow self as much as from the possibility of greatness. Or the possibility to love from my heart. And from the real, authentic Me. My spark. My soul. My Self—I have so often kept these under a cast-iron heavy “bushel.” I am an intensely private person. That said, shielding myself from the eyes of the world has prevented me from glimpsing “beyond the looking glass”TM and finding beauty and treasures within. I never did and still don’t want to rock boats. To be in conflict. To confront others. Partially because I feel hurt by some things in my childhood, but also because I am so afraid people will see the real me—sometimes shriveled and unconfident. Deemed or doomed as an unworthy soul. Filled with “not enough-ness.” Most of the time, I would rather acquiesce. Because I couldn’t bear looking at myself, I sure didn’t want anyone else to try.
In retrospect, I am angry at my obsession with keeping hidden (not only as a channel but as a person). Now I see how much it has kept me back. Kept me from having the courage to find my voice and do my unique LifeWork. I stuffed down my confusion and kept my inner anger and rage as unseen as possible, becoming quite a people pleaser.
Over thirty years ago, on the way to pick up my daughter from elementary school, I cried out—to God, Great Spirit, Source, the Universe—and asked, “Why am I the way I am?”
I heard a voice,
“It’s not about your childhood. Or your parenthood.
It’s not about your marri-age (pronounced may-rage); it’s about your ‘me rage.’”
Daddy-Oh!
While preparing to give a speech some twenty years ago, I suddenly remembered the why and what of my “identity” story. How it tied into my lack of confidence as a person. And just how much I had put the lid on and stifled my self-confidence. When in my fifties, I had a dream/vision while swirling toothpaste as I mindlessly brushed my teeth. A huge auditorium with cascading levels of seats and thick velvety ropes of crimson and gold and shimmer illuminated. I both saw and heard what I had shut out and shoved deep within the folds of my character to protect myself. Finally, I could trace the reason for my anger and my anguish. Why I had chosen to hide and did.
When I was about five years old, my mother developed two heart diseases at the same time (Endocarditis and Pericarditis) and nearly died. She had caught a virus from the pets this at-the-time little me, a rather scrawny kid (with big front teeth of contrasting yellow streaks on white enamel) who, as an only child at the time, had insisted we get—waltzing mice! (My dad’s allergies prevented us from inviting a dog or cat to join our life). These little furry cute bundles of black and white energy simply chased their pretty-in-pink long tails, making almost a pinwheel. What was sweeter and more innocent than that? I named the pair of fifty shades of black-and-white waltzers Mickey and Minnie. (No brainer. “The Wonderful World of Disney” show was popular at the time.) And I played with them whenever I could.
I especially loved stroking their long, blinding-white whiskers. I pranced them over to climb the steam-heat radiator, which sometimes sizzled and made them almost dance as they scurried down and took shelter underneath where I couldn’t reach. Soon relegated down the plank-like stairs with thin wooden railing to our rather bare basement, save the washing machine and a dusty tool bench that was never used, they procreated voraciously. My dad set up connecting cardboard boxes for these furry circus-like performers, and I watched them more than the Howdy Doody Show and The Romper Room with its Miss Francis and her Magic Mirror. The virus my mother developed that nearly cost her her life was traced back to a virus connected to my little mice pets. My father was devastated that my mother was sick and blamed me for her illness. I remember my shock when I saw my mother sunken into German duck-pillowy featherbeds and mounds of white pillowcased lumps that she rested her head on before she was transferred to the hospital. It’s where she stayed for probably more than half a year. I lived through gloomy days as I began to identify as a victim and lived as if I was responsible—for everything.
The Roots of Trauma
My dad’s parentage was seemingly stoic, with tinges of love (based on stories I’ve heard). In retrospect, I can understand that my dad’s mom was not so affectionate with him. On the other hand, he coddled his brother, “The baby!” And this inequality of love was carried throughout his life with his mother. After his father and lastly his mother passed away, my dad’s brother got the whole inheritance—family home, jewelry, silverware, furniture, money, etc. My father got something like $238.00.
Starting in childhood, he missed out on the magic of daily hugs and ‘atta boy’ kind of moments. My dad’s mom loved caring for her home (which was immaculate) and baked deeelicious cookies, mind you. But there was an element of physical touch that I now sense was missing. My dad’s grandmother lived with them, having immigrated from Sweden when she was two years old. I have vague memories of her. But Dad’s childhood home never had a dog or cat (presumably allergies?). Something he could hug. Or be wagged at or had lick-kisses all over his face. He did get a train set in his early teens, but his very jealous “baby” brother (six years young) hated that my dad had a treasured toy for himself, which he was not yet allowed to play with. As the story goes, Dad’s brother snuck into the basement (where the whole train world lived, along with my dad’s engineer’s cap and badge), carried out each piece, and buried it in the backyard. Sibling rivalry left its mark on my dad for years. And he learned to blame—with good reason—things that were out of his control.
As an only child (until I was 12) and as the mom of my Mickey and Minnie Mice family, while my mother was in the hospital with a fate yet unknown but a prognosis of death, my father became distant and cold. Almost absent. I would run and hug him, but I remember being criticized and that he literally pushed me off his lap. Calling me a nickname I still remember and accompanied by a definite glower: “Mean Pup.” What I didn’t understand is that he had no capacity to give comfort. That his own fear was too overwhelming, facing the prospect of his wife dying and him being alone—with little I-need-attention-me and his frail yet sometimes outspoken live-in mother-in-law. My father cherished my mother. He truly and deeply loved her. The Heart and Soul kind of love. He must have felt so lost without her in the house while she fought for her life in the hospital eight blocks away. So lost and indignant that he had to be the main parent, something he was not so sure of or familiar with! So, he lashed out to tell us he was mad. And he directed his anger mostly at me! His rage was confusing, and I remember him muttering, “It’s all your fault.” I may not have understood the meaning of the word, but I knew it wasn’t anything good. Pits in my stomach became residents.
Oh, Now I Get Why I Haven’t Wanted to Go Camping!
I was sent away to an overnight summer camp at that early age: my family had things to sort out and especially needed to figure out what to do with me, whatever the outcome of my mom’s life and death struggle. I was but a little girl with no grasp of time. After lights out (ones that made sputter noises and flickered before dipping us into black shadows on the walls) every night, that added to my cringe. Through my awareness of loneliness, I cried into my pillow, quietly asking (I didn’t understand praying at the time) someone to find and rescue me. To take me home!
I tiptoed on the slate or stone floor of the room with its sturdy wooden oversized bunk beds and cheery autumn-colored patchwork quilts and found my way to the dining room. There, I looked out the oversized picture windows bared of shades or curtains (as I recall). Under the moon’s shine, I saw scattered, crumbling haystacks awaiting their very own scarecrows. We were somewhere in the country, and nothing was familiar to this city girl who walked on, skipped rope on, and drew on sidewalks with colored fat-fingered pieces of chalk. Who took the streetcars downtown to have hot fudge sundaes at the five-and-dime with her mom and gran. To me, I had been abandoned and was being punished. And I was downright pee-in-my-pants scared that no one remembered where I was.
I wondered if anyone would ever rescue me.
I never did work out how long I was there. It could have been a week, a month, or the whole summer. I tried to ask questions. I don’t remember getting any answers. Nobody came to see me. I never talked to my dad or grandma on the telephone. All I knew was that my mother was in the hospital and very sick—primarily and ostensibly because of me and my selfishness. My little girl's perspective was the undeniable fact: something I had done (but didn’t understand fully) had such dire consequences that I was pushed to the side. And it was then that I became somewhat invisible. Quite hidden. Inside, though, were swirling waters of anguish and rage. Quiet on the outside (much of the time), but a caged tiger pacing my entire cavernous inner world.
Of course, I didn’t understand what my dad was feeling. Or that his words and angry glances were masks for his growing despair and anguish. Yet I was experiencing shame and guilt to my core for all the “whatevers” were deemed as my fault. Each of us was raw and hurting and couldn’t, and certainly didn’t, console one another.
On the day my father and grandmother arrived to pick me up, I couldn’t believe it was them. They had come to my rescue! Finally. My dad had bought me a kid-sized baseball cap for our city’s baseball team (a bit odd, as I would have thought he knew I preferred a kid’s nurse’s outfit with a typical starched cap and the quintessential black bag with its duly quintessential stethoscope). They brought our old Scottish black-and-red Tartan plaid cooler packed with a picnic lunch. Probably bologna (or ham) and cheese sandwiches (my dad didn’t like peanut butter), but I honestly don’t remember. We stopped somewhere and, under shady trees, devoured our meal. There was a picture taken of me that day—lying on a soft but scratchy, wooly coverlet, which might have been an old charcoal grey army-navy blanket from my father’s days in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) as a sailor. My grin spanned the whole of my chubby, round face.
Living in the ‘Hood
I blocked this whole experience for nearly 50 years. It was too painful. At that young age, I believed I was to blame for everything that went wrong. I believed what people said. I played the victim and lived in victimhood. Yes, I had rage. Too powerful and too scary to let out anything from my own Pandora’s box, so I also kept it as hidden as I could.
This incident was all but buried until I prepared for a presentation in my adult education class on relationships. This memory was suddenly unearthed, seemingly out of the blue. Suddenly, I was back in our old huge duplex house with its upstairs balcony porch that spanned the whole of the structure and two cavernous front rooms with one wall of knotty pine and the others with large swirled wallpaper splotched with shades of red, ostensibly to match our very red couch. I saw in detail what happened—this time with adult eyes. This time, with the added benefit of being aware of what my dad and I each suffered. (Not to mention my mother and live-in grandmother.) I saw it. Him. Me. And the Fear and Rage between us.
The class assignment was to talk about a time from our childhood that definitively shaped us. We were to talk to a class of probably 25-30 about a real incident that, more specifically, “made us who we are today.” From the time I was a little girl into my teens, and admittedly throughout adulthood, I have said “I’m sorry” countless times a day, never able to connect back to what instigated my feeling of such a heavy responsibility. I truly meant that word—“sorry”—sincerely. For one thing, I did not want anyone else to be mad at me. Try as I might with little girl world knowledge, not only was I not healed, but I also experienced my inner child’s shame and tears far beyond puberty. And I sighed. ALL. THE. TIME.
But that Day of My Rescue, when I finally was brought home, a new person was in our home. A part-time aide came every day to help me and my grandma while my dad worked. During those days, my dad’s words made me feel afraid. Yes, I am part Irish (his side of the family), and yes, I had a temper from early on. But I had become belligerent—in retaliation—attacking my dad with similar emotions of anger through temper tantrums (which at age five were no doubt much more intense than the ‘terrible twos’ variety). This struggle affected both of us for far too long. Our exchange and our reactions became our pattern. And one more reason I kept hidden. Our visible/invisible, sometimes silent and sometimes shouting, rift lasted far too many years.
He did take me to a ballgame once. Probably the summer I got my baseball cap, which I wore proudly. I didn’t understand the game, but I have never forgotten that he tried to do some nice things for me. He taught me how to count money and, eventually, how to drive. So, we had moments. At least a few.
Fast forward to high school and college and then out-in-the-world work years. My Dad and I both loved “All in the Family,” “Newhart,” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” My Mom hated them. So whenever we watched one of “our” shows, I felt in synch with him. These few fun and “funnier than a crutch” (one of his favorite sayings) moments we shared were lovely. and hopeful, but the deep soul connection with him was never healed.
Actually, it was still between us, even after his death, until I participated in a guided meditation several years ago. In the meditation, I was astonished to see my father. I “saw” myself sitting on a white plush and sink-in-able couch in a beautiful temple with a simple altar, skylights, and sconces with soft, dimmed lightbulbs spaced and placed with precision on the walls. My dad was opposite me on an old wooden chair, half broken. What surprised me was that he was loosely bound to it with soft cloth strips of fabric but could move neither his arms nor legs. Without looking at me, he choked on the few words he raspily whispered, “I am sorry.” At that moment, I couldn’t speak; I was taken back to what was probably his experience during the bleak and desolate days of my mother’s illness. I spiritually saw his inner self had been tortured by what he accepted as his inability to love me, and then I faced my reciprocal anger and rage. He was quite penitent, and through that vision, I believe he did want to speak but couldn’t.
I (finally) saw the situation through his eyes. And saw that when he was faced with the possibility of life without my mom, he experienced the churning of some major emotional twists and turns he could not handle. He turned to alcohol, which made him weep less even as he gnashed his teeth more. In his last years of life, he was not satisfied with some of my choices in life and took me out of his will, adding further fuel to our alienation.
But from that meditation, compassion welled up as tears. And figuratively. I had new insight and sight. I was struck by the empathy that, osmosis-like, entered my heart valves. I forgave him and became ready, once again, to love—him and myself. To let go of at least part of my me-rage! One major realization dawned: I could begin, with my heart, untying those cloth ties that bound my father from moving forward. I intuited that he could move forward in some ways through the power of my forgiveness. He asked for it, humbly. I gave it, genuinely. I hoped this act of love for my father would serve him in a way that he would be able to finally forgive himself.
From the Mouths of Babes
Throughout my channeling and internal spiritual journey, from the visions and words I received, I began to see that “service” is something we can extend from Earth to those in the spirit world. And that the spirit world serves us in return. My father was asking for my forgiveness by his words, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t (maybe couldn’t) look me in the eye. Maybe he didn’t even feel my presence. Once he got to the spirit world, he must have been stuck in some ways. And much of the torture was self-inflicted—just as mine had been.
I know the feelings of abandonment and inner rage as a child. I know the incredible inner conflict one can feel when we touch into our (Higher) Self and know we have the power to disable the anger and rage, even though we may want to retaliate. As an adult, I could look at my disfigured, still-little-girl replica of the Me I had become. I saw how crippled and imprisoned my father was. I realized that the pain for both of us needed to stop. And I was the one who could extend the olive branch.
Perhaps one’s parents were or are broken in some way, suffering from their own inner abuse of hating themselves for things they did or could not do. For things for which they were blamed, whether that point even mattered. And sometimes for even taking things out on us. Or perhaps we see them as “broken,” and also, we can’t be our true ourselves. From our child's eyes and with an open heart, we might have experienced being shut off and abruptly abandoned in some way. We believed what they said. We took responsibility for what they felt. We were, in a sense, victims. I sure was. Until I was reminded that one of the greatest gifts in service to others is forgiveness—of them and ourselves. And that is an act of kindness and service we can do when we are ready.
The Wise Whys: On the Road to My Authentic Self
I am not a pious person. I’d say spiritual, but not religious. More introvert than extrovert. I am not highly educated, although I believe I have a good degree of Emotional Intelligence and have had an opening of my heart to Spirit by Spirit. I have discovered I am an HSP—a Highly Sensitive Person. (THAT explains a lot!!) Now, in my 70s and finally shifting the focus on intently doing my LifeWork while I am still on the planet, I am motivated simply to spread spiritual messages that have come through me.
I have the dream of lifting people up and hopefully adding goodness to their life force through presenting the channelings in this website and their subsequent publication rather than having them gather even more dust in my file cabinet. On my work resumes, my “mission statement” was summed up in a few simple words. My goal, wherever I worked, was “To make a difference!” It is still my motto. And through the capsule version of me presented within this website, that mission is atop what I will refer to as my “resume”—from the words of the spirit beings who have written through me and brought new insights from their experiences of life in the spirit world.
For some reason, I have been chosen to channel messages from the afterlife. For some reason, it is what allowed me to see the “caged bird me” flit through the cage door and fly free—at least some of the time. Free from the confines in which I have hidden. Encouraged by my daughter, my husband, My Friend Kem, Percival, Ananda, Quanta, and dear friends, I am finally gathering courage enough to put forth the messages I have received, even in the face of criticism. With all the heart and willpower I can muster, I bring forth their information, which hopefully can serve you and others in some way.
On Purpose
On the road to self-discovery of my Authentic Self, I have come to understand the core purpose of my life: to love and accept myself—whether anybody else does! For a Highly Sensitive Person like me, it’s not something that comes easy. In the last 15 to 20 years, my quest has been to know myself—not based on my belief system (religious and otherwise). But to experience life—partially in serving others, but also during the solo journey of my soul to find Me within. The WisdomTeachers and My Friend have coined the term “divine yourself” or to find the “divine” of our Self. We do it partially by “devein-ing” and also “kaleidoscope-ing.” No longer choked by anger or being so repentant that we hang our heads in shame. Or continue saying “I’m sorry”—when clearly, responsibility for everything is not something any of us should claim. Instead, we would do best to live—on purpose and through uncovering the Aha! of knowing we are also (part of) Source—Beloved—Our God. To experience that there is Connection between all.
By first “de-vein-ing”** ourselves, we separate our wheat from our chaff. And then, by “divine-ing” ourselves, we can locate the kernels of goodness within and unearth them, ensuring they do not stay hidden or buried. To separate the “kaleidoscope” shards into I’s and Eyes. (Please refer to the Courses: Intuit-You! and Me-Anderings for more information.).
It’s an essential, if not noble, pursuit.
*******
One of my all-time favorite songs has been sung by several talented artists, but my choice is the version by Kermit the Frog. “The Rainbow Connection,” in its simplicity and focus, might begin to coax one of the great mysteries of how life on Earth links with the “Heaven”—the afterlife. The lyrics indicate that all of us are “under its spell.” That we know “it’s magic,” and that someday we’ll find it—the Rainbow Connection. Doesn’t this also indicate we will find how all of us are connected to one another? To find our hidden self and our visible Self and honor them both? Perhaps then we can understand we are never really abandoned. Never really alone. And that I need not live in victimhood for my entire life. Neither do you!
I feel the “rainbow connection” ties in with my LifeWork of writing about and specifically receiving information about the spiritual world. And to make available those words of hope and healing from the hearts of those in Spirit. I will count myself in the group described in the song, with my own passion to discover it—as “a lover, a dreamer” —
yes, that’s Me!
*for more specifics of my life, please visit the Memoir section
** for an explanation of “devein-ing,” “kaleidoscop-ing” and “divine-ing,” please visit the About You section