Month: January 2016

The Universe Speaks

lizaaitken

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have a feeling that I understand all the universe has to offer, it makes complete sense and I wonder at how it has taken me so long to understand. It is like a long awakened memory, that has been pushed down so far its feels fresh and new.

I can only compare this feeling to something menial like solving a difficult maths problem, building a flat pack wardrobe without the correct instructions or tallying end of year accounts. What seems to be an insurmountable problem, suddenly makes sense and fits into place with ease. Have you ever wondered at what took you so long on a job well done, thats the feeling I have when I wake up in the middle of the night with the certainty that I know all thats humanly possible to know.

I’m so smug, elated, overjoyed. I can tell the world where to find what it has been searching for so long. I don’t need to write it down, it is so clear in my mind, perfect, perfect, perfect. I lie there for a while thinking about how I can use this gift, until I drift back to sleep again.

I wake up, it has gone, I’ve lost it. I know it is in my mind somewhere buried deep in my subconscious but for today it’s lost. I have this dream often and yet I haven’t written it down despite the notepad by my bed. I know I will have the dream again, it is my calling the universe is communicating with me. I know one day I will remember what it has to say because otherwise the universe wouldn’t talk to me.

Thoughts on Spirituality

lizaaitken

We spend a lot of time trying to discover who we really are, find out what we should be doing and how to live our lives. We attempt to connect with our true selves, through meditation, mindfulness and just regular kindness. We treat our bodies well and love as we should, unconditionally when we can. We are kind to the planet and follow as best we can the recommended spiritual pathways. Thousands of books have been written on the subject of spirituality, from many different points of view, but who are we really?

I believe we are spirit incarnated in a physical body, living regular lives on this planet called earth and that is the problem. A spiritual being is made up of energy and colour but without form, spirit is thought, love and feeling not matter. When we are born into this earthly existence wherever we came from and whatever we knew before, the first primitive things that hit us are the needs of our physical body. We need warmth, food, clothing and shelter and there it begins our departure from anything we were connected with before. We have to find our way through a world based on materialism, where what you own counts more than what you do. We are programmed from the moment of our birth into whatever society we are born into, there starts the race back.

I believe we come her with a plan, we know what our purpose is and have a hand (turn of phrase) in planning our journey. I think we even choose our families and friends in returning to the same soul groups, but play a different part each time. Not all performances get a standing ovation, but we can hope we get it right this time. We know as spiritual beings what the objectives are, in our all seeing all knowing form we understood. In retuning to the same soul groups we will influence and challenge each other, assist each others journey and hold each other back. Until we realise this journey is ours and ours alone we will not fully make progress, that is not to say that a big part of our journey might be service to others.

I think we choose our challenges but that is  undertaken from a higher perspective, where we have what I call, the long view. We know what experiences we need to realise and overcome in order to grow and make progress on our spiritual pathway but we have to do it in a materialistic world full of obstacles from the moment we arrive. It does seem like a cruel trick, a difficult level in a game that we have to keep repeating until we get it right. But we do progress, I can look back on my life and see the steps I have made to get here now. I hate looking back, I’m not proud of some of my selfish and often easier choices earlier on. They say your life flashes before you when you die, there are bits of it that I see now and recognise as failure. But I hope I’m marked on my overall performance, what steps I made along the way and how much I changed. What if we get it wrong, do we have to do it all again, I’m inclined to think we do.

I believe in reincarnation, I’m not sure how it works but I believe in the continuation of the soul and reincarnation seems to me to sit nicely within it. So each life we progress until we reach a place in which we do not have to return. I’m sure there is more work to do after this but we won’t need to return again unless we chose to in order to help others. There’s a thought, say we return as a master and get it wrong, do we have to start at the very beginning. I think it can be easier to understand if you look at it like a game of snakes and ladders, each life is a new game and how quickly we get to the top depends on what we find in our way. It is so easy to land on a snake and find ourselves back where we started.

So we experience rejection, loss, poverty and illness here and have no idea why. I think that we probably have to come to a physical environment to experience these things. We are spirits learning how to be better and this is a stage in our learning, we need to overcome and find the true purpose of life in a place that doesn’t have the answers. If we think of the afterlife as a library and ourselves as students we have to agree we couldn’t sit our exams in a library, we have to find an appropriate place, an exam centre so to speak. We are all students working through the practical stage of the exam and we won’t get our results until we complete it, this might just be the foundation level.

So what about our higher selves, our greater consciousness, the part we tap into sometimes when we meditate. I’ve been told that we are connected by an invisible thread and that part of ourselves does not come to earth but remains in the spiritual planes. When we truly connect with our higher self we get the answers, because that part of us knows and can guide us in the right direction. I visualise my teenage self up there with my higher self, I think she can learn from her as could I.  One problem with any form of connection is that it is we talk with our mouths, listen with our ears and work things out with our brains, spirit don’t have these things any more so we have to learn telepathy or something in order to interpret what we think we feel.

Anyway who knows, sometimes I think maybe we should just let the mystery be and find out when the race is run.

Goodbye David Bowie

lizaaitken

I’m in shock, it feels like family, David Bowie died without telling anyone he was ill. I suppose he told his real family but he didn’t tell the world, those of us that think he is connected to us on some profound level and our loss feels personal. David has always been around throughout my life, like an older brother, younger father or cousin, uncle or very special friend. David has been singing songs for me and mine since forever. We sung them too, at the top of our voices to karaoke while drunk and silently in times of great pain, he was with us at those most poignant of times. He shaped our youths, he gave us ideas and introduced us to great works of art and thinkers like Burroughs, he allowed us to believe. He had something to say and that something was very important, will we see the world in the same way again.  David gave us strength and belief that anything was possible, he was weird and wonderful, beautiful and sexy. I love to put on Bowie, knowing every word or thinking I do, strum of the guitar and blow of the sax. David was a musical genius, trendsetter and musical rebel and he will be missed by the world.

When my mother died we played Jean Genie as the first song at her wake, it felt like he wrote it for her, it spoke of her to us. I felt that David knew my mum, knew all of us, I think he actually did meet some of the family. I’m sure my uncle Tony, made some of his guitars back in the day, when Tony was still alive, although I think it was Tony Visconti that picked them up and I’m absolutely sure Bill met him on the club scene. Simon’s claim to fame is the day in the recording studios when Bowie walked past and said to him ‘nice shirt’ and my cousin was born on his birthday so there has to be a family connection.

When people die, I like to have their music, know what they want at their service, I have a note section on my phone called ‘Dead Songs’ where I keep my friends favourites. I do have a ‘David Dead’ section but that’s another David, a friend who doesn’t sing very well. We knew my mum’s and we knew Bill’s it was important for us to get it right. Mum chose the exact recording of Judy Garland singing Closer live at Carnegie Hall and Bill, Stan Keaton’s Intermission Riff, of course they had four more each all perfect on the day. David released his own death songs three days before he passed, his last album Black Star, he was a poet, his music and lyrics move me, especially today. David wrote his own epitaph, he was incredible he will be missed.

There is an outpouring of grief today, social medial and TV and Radio have covered it all day. It seems to me watching and listening to the news today an awful lot of people are crying. David inspired generations, he gave us hope. Some think it strange that we grieve for a man we didn’t even know, but we did know him through his music, we knew that quiet, sure and brilliant artist. There is a party in heaven today, or maybe somewhere on Mars as David has gone home. He is rocking with angels tonight and I think it is probably very colourful, none of your white and serene. He has friends there to greet him and we will see him if we look to the stars and believe.

Goodbye David, you will never really truly leave us.

The Visit to the Medium

lizaaitken

‘Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny two a penny, hot cross buns’ she sang across the room almost in a whisper. ‘Is there something about Easter I should be thinking of, is it a message of some sort?’ the young woman asked the medium sitting patiently across from her. ‘The thing is I can’t seem to get the tune out of my head, it is like it is on a loop and I can’t think why. I mean it is only January for goodness sake and I don’t believe I have even seen one in the shops yet, surely we have to get through Valentines Day first’. She looked across the room at the spiritual medium she was visiting who was silently smiling over at her. She wondered if she appeared mad, what did she really hope to get from today.

Rosie had booked the appointment on the spur of the moment, she had seen the card on a shop notice board, it had jumped out at her. She took it off of the cork board and slipped it into her pocket hoping she wouldn’t be seen and scurried from the shop to the park bench, where she made the telephone call to Myra. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded friendly enough. She said in a gentle voice that interestingly she had just received a telephone call from a client cancelling an appointment, and yes, although she had been fully booked today this cancellation opened up a space at one o’clock. She went on to say that maybe it was synchronicity, it certainly felt like that to Rosie.

After making the call Rosie began to feel a little nervous, she hadn’t been to see a medium before and today she was going on her own. Why did she even feel the necessity, what was she hoping for she asked out loud.  She scrolled down through her contacts on her iPhone wondering who she could persuade to come along. Exhausting the list of hopefuls Rosie realised she would have to go it alone, she didn’t want to put it off now she had made the call she didn’t know if she would be brave enough again.

Myra was situated just off of Haydon’s Road, in a little cul-de-sac full of red brick victorian cottages. Rosie got there a little early and walked past the house looking up at the windows. The curtains were drawn against the sun at the front which sent a little shiver through her, would the house be full of the spirits of the dead she thought, would she be frightened. Rosie waited a little further down the road, propped against a garden wall until the time of her appointment. At 12.50 Rosie watched as an elderly lady left the house, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue before getting into a waiting taxi.

On arriving, she was shown into a small siting room, Myra told her she used specifically for spiritual consultations. The walls were painted white, but the room was full of colour. Everywhere she looked Rosie could see bursts of colour, from the crystals, ornaments, pictures and statues to the spines of the many books stacked neatly on shelves. A picture on the wall above the medium appeared to draw her in, the colours where quite overwhelming.  Rosie believed could feel the colours in her stomach, she felt a pull that she didn’t recognise. Surprisingly Myra herself looked quite ordinary, nicely painted finger nails, long blond hair and wearing a black dress with a scarf tied neatly around her neck. Rosie had expected something else, a gypsy maybe wearing silk, bangles and beads but Myra looked like anyone else, although admittedly attractive.

Hearing that Rosie hadn’t seen a medium before Myra had explained a little about how she worked. ‘I don’t give predictions my dear, I see and hear spirit and pass on messages from the afterlife’.  She paused a moment before continuing ‘I have had a lady with me all morning and I wasn’t sure who she was, now that you are here I know that she is here for you.  But first I would like to know what you hope to get from our meeting today?’. Rosie wasn’t sure, she had come on a whim after not being able to get the hot cross bun song out of her head, but now she was here she didn’t have a clue as to what she wanted from the session.  Rosie garbled out how she had the song stuck in her head, she didn’t know why.  In fact she didn’t really know what had brought her here today, she had just not been able to stop thinking about it and then the card on the notice board.  She fell silent feeling a little silly and out of control.

Myra began to describe the woman she had with her, it was clear it was Rosie’s mum wearing the dress that Rosie alway saw her in, the green one with the cream spots and the lace cardigan. Rosie listened silently as Myra spoke of memories from her childhood. A tear trickled slowly down her cheek as she felt her mothers love and the words the medium said resonated throughout her very soul. ‘Your mother has a message for you my dear’ Myra said as she looked directly into Rosie’s eyes. ‘She want me to ask you why you don’t speak to her now she has passed, she wants you to know she is really here, that her love hasn’t died and she is with you every moment’. Rosie looked across at the medium, through her mother who stood between them in the small room. ‘I don’t know what to say’ Rosie whispered. ‘I see her all the time, standing by my bed, looking over my shoulder in the mirror and sitting next to me on the bus, but I can’t speak in case she disappears, you see she is in my imagination, she died last year’. Myra smiled gently ‘ oh you really don’t know you have the gift do you, do you not realise it is you mother you see not your imagination my dear’ she paused ‘Imagination my child is made up of the word image, you have to start believing in what you see’. Rosie looked up at her mother, standing in the room between them and for the first time since her mothers death realised she was still here.

There really wasn’t an awful lot more to be said in the session, the main message had come out straight away. It wouldn’t have been right to carry on with a reading they both agreed, well all three of them in some ways. Myra gave Rosie another card with the details of a development group, she told her it would help her begin to understand work with spirit when she was ready and Myra said she would be happy to talk to her if she had any questions. Myra told her she was very happy to have helped today, this wasn’t what she would usually expect on meeting new clients. Myra said ‘you never know what spirit have in store for you’ as she saw Rosie out.

Arriving home that afternoon Rosie put her key on her mothers trinket tray by the door and sat for a while reflecting on the days events, she thought back over the last year, realising at the same time her mother had been with her all along, she hadn’t left her at all.  Later Rosie opened the freezer looking for dinner options, she was starting to feel hungry. There on the top shelf was a pack of hot cross buns, frozen and forgotten. Rosie turned looked at her mother who was standing beside her ‘thank you for taking me there today mum, for putting the song in my head, for showing me the card, we won’t be needing her anymore but I did need to hear the message to really see you’.