It is tough to "wait" . . . to sit back and let the world do its slow little dance towards certain planetary or cosmic alignments but just like the best halfbacks I try to sit back and wait for the blocks and then the holes will appear. But when the hole opens -- you've got to hit it!
I have "seen" things for a long long time now -- over 30 years. There were certain "images" that I waited to see before telling my "story". The beauty of my life is that I have built a small niche in this psychic media world and have an audience, of sorts, for the things I say. And THAT is beautiful.
But, for me anyway, the time for a spiritual cleanse -- the big shamanic roto-rooter, the cosmic colonic -- is NOW. And I mean RIGHT NOW.
It is not fashionable in the "New Age" community to talk about Jesus and the New Testament but I think HE is vitally important and as much as most churches in the West disgust me, that doesn't negate the power and beauty of HIS message.
I believe that ALL religions that teach love and a respect for the earth and for each other are TRUE religions. There is a profound beauty and truth to Judaism, a profound beauty and truth, too, to Islam as well as many other revealed wisdoms over the years that have been codified into a "religious system". I have a respect and love for their teachings and for those who follow them.
My profound respect for Jesus -- both as a man and an enlightened master -- is off the hook. Amazing. He had to be soooooooo amazing.
But there are other religions with amazing lessons for us to read about and learn from, too -- Judaism, Islam, and Taoism . . . (and Wicca, too, of course, 'cause, let's face it -- I'm a Witch) . . . being the ones (other than Christianity) with the most profound impact on my own personal spiritual development but there are many others that I value and respect and read, too.
I think that this year -- 2010 -- is a BIG YEAR. I have said on air for a long time that 2010 was the important year, not 2012. And I still feel that. I think if we can find love within ourselves and share it with other people then the world will be a beautiful and happy and safe place. If not, then the world will shake and bake and then, I think, we're sorta fucked . . .
If there is a Sodom and Gomorrah in the 21st Century it is not toooooo outrageous of an idea, I think, to say that it lives within the boundaries of The United States of America. We are a country, right now, filled with greed and hate.
The message of Christianity has been hi-jacked, just like the banks and healthcare and public education, by a small cabal with an evil (yep, that is what I said "evil" -- 'cause I feel that it's true) game plan to take what they want come HELL (and yes I said "Hell") or high water. More for me and a whole lot LESS for you . . .
First off: There are no racial differences between us in the eyes of God. Heaven is not going to filled with ONLY white people who kept their lawns nice. Sorry.
It is a diverse universe we live in and, to me, that is what makes it such a beautiful world. I try to keep my religious Jesus loves me thang under wraps but I DO believe in so much of HIS teachings. I hope that we can all see the light from his words -- not the words the PUBLIC CHURCH distorts to make us all good little worker bee drones but the truth of his message of caring and compassion for everyone.
Simplicity, kindness, balance -- that is what the world needs. Open the Bible and read the part with the red letters. Same thing with the Torah and the Koran. Look to the spiritual guidelines we've been given. Forget the capitalist hype -- go down deep, into the soul. That is the where the truth lives.
It is time, for us all, to go within -- before, perhaps, it is too late :(
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Predictions
My good friend, the brilliant numerologist (and clairvoyant, too -- 'cause whether she admits it or not, I am here to tell you that she is DEFINITELY a clairvoyant !!) Alison Baughman talked quite a bit at the beginning of the year about EARTHQUAKES in 2010. She kept saying that there were going to be A LOT of them and, I think it is safe to say that she was correct.
I know the Twins, Terry and Linda Jamison, also were very vocal about earthquakes in 2010. I am sure there are probably others, too, but I know Alison and the Twins, so I hear it straight from them. I'm a witness to how accurate they are.
Dominique Alexandar, my closest friend for the past 18 years (since the days when we were both TV infomercial psychics back in the $3.99 a minute heyday), and I have talked repeatedly over the past 2 years about earthquakes. So, too, our dear friend Allie Cheslick.
When Alison talked about earthquakes there was a place ON THE MAP . . . because that is how I SEE things (the place on the map or the human body LIGHTS UP) . . . that just GLOWED bright RED to me.
That big red spot was the coast of Chile. I felt the really dangerous spot for earthquakes was Chile -- and yesterday a devastating 8.8 magnitude quake hit there (this is approximately 60 TIMES the level of intensity of the recent quake in Haiti !!).
I started doing a radio spot as a guest psychic on "The Strange Dave Show". The past 2 weeks I have been doing 5 min segments where I make predictions. On Feb 16, (my first taped segment), I talked about political scandals being something on the horizon and, a week later, we already have the uproar about NY Gov Paterson and a potential ethics violation against Congressman Charlie Rangel -- but there are still, imo, more big names yet to come.
Tuesday, I said that I saw "a boat crash in to a bridge". Well within 72 hours a tugboat in Louisiana did, in fact, crash into a bridge and an ocean liner crashed in to the pier -- I'll take that as a hit and not just a random oh anyone could have guessed that "thang".
The reason I am bringing this up is that there are a lot of us -- at the higher end of the psychic food chain (and it may be bad taste to just go ahead and so boldly include myself in this group but I am gonna quote ol Diz "It ain't bragging if you can do it") -- who are now locked in and I expect this to continue . . . not just for me but for a lot of us: Alison, Allie, Dominique and The Twins, as well as many many others.
The world is shifting. The "veils" are parting. This is a magical / magickal time . . . we are in a spiritual crisis. This is GOD saying . . . to all of us . . . "WAKE UP".
God is telling us to wake up . . . that is, truly, what I believe.
I know the Twins, Terry and Linda Jamison, also were very vocal about earthquakes in 2010. I am sure there are probably others, too, but I know Alison and the Twins, so I hear it straight from them. I'm a witness to how accurate they are.
Dominique Alexandar, my closest friend for the past 18 years (since the days when we were both TV infomercial psychics back in the $3.99 a minute heyday), and I have talked repeatedly over the past 2 years about earthquakes. So, too, our dear friend Allie Cheslick.
When Alison talked about earthquakes there was a place ON THE MAP . . . because that is how I SEE things (the place on the map or the human body LIGHTS UP) . . . that just GLOWED bright RED to me.
That big red spot was the coast of Chile. I felt the really dangerous spot for earthquakes was Chile -- and yesterday a devastating 8.8 magnitude quake hit there (this is approximately 60 TIMES the level of intensity of the recent quake in Haiti !!).
I started doing a radio spot as a guest psychic on "The Strange Dave Show". The past 2 weeks I have been doing 5 min segments where I make predictions. On Feb 16, (my first taped segment), I talked about political scandals being something on the horizon and, a week later, we already have the uproar about NY Gov Paterson and a potential ethics violation against Congressman Charlie Rangel -- but there are still, imo, more big names yet to come.
Tuesday, I said that I saw "a boat crash in to a bridge". Well within 72 hours a tugboat in Louisiana did, in fact, crash into a bridge and an ocean liner crashed in to the pier -- I'll take that as a hit and not just a random oh anyone could have guessed that "thang".
The reason I am bringing this up is that there are a lot of us -- at the higher end of the psychic food chain (and it may be bad taste to just go ahead and so boldly include myself in this group but I am gonna quote ol Diz "It ain't bragging if you can do it") -- who are now locked in and I expect this to continue . . . not just for me but for a lot of us: Alison, Allie, Dominique and The Twins, as well as many many others.
The world is shifting. The "veils" are parting. This is a magical / magickal time . . . we are in a spiritual crisis. This is GOD saying . . . to all of us . . . "WAKE UP".
God is telling us to wake up . . . that is, truly, what I believe.
Changes to my new Tarot and Divination Decks
I have made some changes to the original design of both my new decks. I had to do the fine tooth comb thing with the decks due to possible copyright infringement issues (the images were good on some of the old paintings but there was a possible issue with the photographs OF the images) soooooooo . . .
I have revised both decks and changed them from full color to B & W. Therefore, the price will be going down on both decks. Also, I am not going to be offering the signed and numbered custom decks any more, either. I have contacted everyone who had previously purchased a deck at the old price and given them options due to the new, lower price.
The "Khar - Ma: Past Lives Divination Deck" will now be $23 -- it was $39 before. "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows" will now be $22 -- it was $36 before. You can now, if you choose, purchase both decks for $39 -- the price of the "Khar - Ma" deck before. Shipping and handling is $6 per deck (for shipping within the U.S. only).
Anyway . . . I wanted to give this update. I think the cards now have an even funkier cosmic vibe than before -- although, truthfully, the original designs WERE prettier. If you are interested in purchasing one -- or both -- decks, please check out my website: http://www.rocknrollpsychic.com/order_information_for_divination_and_tarot_decks
I have revised both decks and changed them from full color to B & W. Therefore, the price will be going down on both decks. Also, I am not going to be offering the signed and numbered custom decks any more, either. I have contacted everyone who had previously purchased a deck at the old price and given them options due to the new, lower price.
The "Khar - Ma: Past Lives Divination Deck" will now be $23 -- it was $39 before. "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows" will now be $22 -- it was $36 before. You can now, if you choose, purchase both decks for $39 -- the price of the "Khar - Ma" deck before. Shipping and handling is $6 per deck (for shipping within the U.S. only).
Anyway . . . I wanted to give this update. I think the cards now have an even funkier cosmic vibe than before -- although, truthfully, the original designs WERE prettier. If you are interested in purchasing one -- or both -- decks, please check out my website: http://www.rocknrollpsychi
These are the frontispieces to my Past Life Divination Deck "Khar - Ma" and my Tarot Deck "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows".
"The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows"
"Khar - Ma: Past Lives Divination Deck"
Anniversaries
It is almost 5 years, to the day, from when I first came to California. My circumstances back then were much different. I was working as the Change Management Lead for a project for Ace Insurance in downtown Philadelphia.
It was my job to document all the internal I.T. processes for the company, develop, write and test code (yes in this case I actually wrote the simple code needed to develop the software) and oversee all efforts to prove Ace's internal business processes met the legislative dictates of Sarbanes-Oxley -- a law written primarily as a corporate compliance measure in the wake of financial scandals like Enron -- where I was also once a contract executive.
I, personally, (this is true) wrote The Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron and was also, for a time, the Customer Satisfaction Manager for the entire company.
But that is another story . . . and yes, at the time, I was a direct report to the Executive V.P. of CSC Energy Services (who secured a 1.1 Billion Dollar outsourcing contract) and I warned him that things weren't all kosher within the internal infrastructure of what was then hailed as the most innovative company in the world.
But all that is background. In February, 2005, I was leaving my fancy office on the 19th floor overlooking Philadelphia's City Hall to come west to help develop internal business processes and controls for Kaiser Permanente's 4 Billion (since ballooned to perhaps 7 or 8 Billion) Dollar initiative -- HealthConnect -- to automate and digitize all internal medical records. The money was simply too great ($140.00 am hour) to pass up.
I was also engaged -- to a woman I met while working in 2003-2004 in northern Virginia. So Beth, and her daughter Elise, made the trek with me, came to California to begin a somewhat troubled existence isolated in a big house in the 'burbs with only a bare minimum of furniture and soon Beth was both homesick and pregnant, a volatile mix.
I was determined to stay in my $5600 a week job, Beth was determined to go back to Virginia and wanted me to quit. I tried to explain that these jobs didn't grow on trees but her experience of me was exactly the opposite. She had over the past 2 years seen me get progressively bigger and more lucrative contracts every six months or so and perhaps her expectation was that next time I would get $200 an hour and we could still live on the East Coast.
Anyway . . . a deal was made. I accepted a permanent position at Kaiser in order to get health insurance. We would stay until the baby was born, wait a few months until Elise finished school and then, poof, adios California and on to Atlanta, where we had a beautiful custom-built home ready and waiting . . .
A lot of you know the story from there -- at least the highlights. The baby, our darling little Lehna, was stillborn. I made the decision a few months later not to marry Beth and leave California but instead stayed with Kaiser and said adios to a woman I was truly in love with.
I was at the door step of self-destruction and leaving Beth was an obvious (although I didn't recognize it at the time) first step towards unraveling my storybook life . . . also I needed "space". Primarily because I was grieving but, in retrospect, to "wash the corporate" off me and get back in touch with the "psychic gifts" I had tried to turn off 15 years earlier.
I am bringing this up because on a symbolic level I think my path over the past 5 years mirrors in an almost eerie sense the path of the United States. Bloated on prosperity, blind to any possibility of failure, I saw my productivity come to an end and I began living on the fumes from my past success, eating myself from within. I think this is also happening on a national level.
It was the beginning of President Bush's second term. There was a sense of something not quite right but the housing bubble was expanding and a false sense of optimism was in the air. I knew early on that this "correction" was going to happen . . . but ideas of "Manifest Destiny" and "God is on OUR side" still clang loudest in most American hearts and minds.
There is a growing awareness, though, that not all is well in the Kingdom anymore. The Emperor has clothes, but they are dissolving, and each new stitch in time is made with cheap thread. It is going to unravel.
In my case, I choose to focus on the light within and, increasingly, turn away from the day to day and look more at God and matters of the "Spirit". On a national level, we are all going through this collective "Dark Night of the Soul" . . . it is my hope that we, as a collective, will wake up from this darkness and find a light shining within, that we will wake up to a sense of joy and compassion.
But I am not so sure that will be . . . and my prediction is this. I believe 2010 is a "crisis" year -- a year in which skeletons locked safely away begin rattling in their cage. It is a time of scandal and self-revelation . . . a time when the hopes fade and a new sense of reality begins to appear.
This year is America's "Dark Night" . . .
It was my job to document all the internal I.T. processes for the company, develop, write and test code (yes in this case I actually wrote the simple code needed to develop the software) and oversee all efforts to prove Ace's internal business processes met the legislative dictates of Sarbanes-Oxley -- a law written primarily as a corporate compliance measure in the wake of financial scandals like Enron -- where I was also once a contract executive.
I, personally, (this is true) wrote The Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron and was also, for a time, the Customer Satisfaction Manager for the entire company.
But that is another story . . . and yes, at the time, I was a direct report to the Executive V.P. of CSC Energy Services (who secured a 1.1 Billion Dollar outsourcing contract) and I warned him that things weren't all kosher within the internal infrastructure of what was then hailed as the most innovative company in the world.
But all that is background. In February, 2005, I was leaving my fancy office on the 19th floor overlooking Philadelphia's City Hall to come west to help develop internal business processes and controls for Kaiser Permanente's 4 Billion (since ballooned to perhaps 7 or 8 Billion) Dollar initiative -- HealthConnect -- to automate and digitize all internal medical records. The money was simply too great ($140.00 am hour) to pass up.
I was also engaged -- to a woman I met while working in 2003-2004 in northern Virginia. So Beth, and her daughter Elise, made the trek with me, came to California to begin a somewhat troubled existence isolated in a big house in the 'burbs with only a bare minimum of furniture and soon Beth was both homesick and pregnant, a volatile mix.
I was determined to stay in my $5600 a week job, Beth was determined to go back to Virginia and wanted me to quit. I tried to explain that these jobs didn't grow on trees but her experience of me was exactly the opposite. She had over the past 2 years seen me get progressively bigger and more lucrative contracts every six months or so and perhaps her expectation was that next time I would get $200 an hour and we could still live on the East Coast.
Anyway . . . a deal was made. I accepted a permanent position at Kaiser in order to get health insurance. We would stay until the baby was born, wait a few months until Elise finished school and then, poof, adios California and on to Atlanta, where we had a beautiful custom-built home ready and waiting . . .
A lot of you know the story from there -- at least the highlights. The baby, our darling little Lehna, was stillborn. I made the decision a few months later not to marry Beth and leave California but instead stayed with Kaiser and said adios to a woman I was truly in love with.
I was at the door step of self-destruction and leaving Beth was an obvious (although I didn't recognize it at the time) first step towards unraveling my storybook life . . . also I needed "space". Primarily because I was grieving but, in retrospect, to "wash the corporate" off me and get back in touch with the "psychic gifts" I had tried to turn off 15 years earlier.
I am bringing this up because on a symbolic level I think my path over the past 5 years mirrors in an almost eerie sense the path of the United States. Bloated on prosperity, blind to any possibility of failure, I saw my productivity come to an end and I began living on the fumes from my past success, eating myself from within. I think this is also happening on a national level.
It was the beginning of President Bush's second term. There was a sense of something not quite right but the housing bubble was expanding and a false sense of optimism was in the air. I knew early on that this "correction" was going to happen . . . but ideas of "Manifest Destiny" and "God is on OUR side" still clang loudest in most American hearts and minds.
There is a growing awareness, though, that not all is well in the Kingdom anymore. The Emperor has clothes, but they are dissolving, and each new stitch in time is made with cheap thread. It is going to unravel.
In my case, I choose to focus on the light within and, increasingly, turn away from the day to day and look more at God and matters of the "Spirit". On a national level, we are all going through this collective "Dark Night of the Soul" . . . it is my hope that we, as a collective, will wake up from this darkness and find a light shining within, that we will wake up to a sense of joy and compassion.
But I am not so sure that will be . . . and my prediction is this. I believe 2010 is a "crisis" year -- a year in which skeletons locked safely away begin rattling in their cage. It is a time of scandal and self-revelation . . . a time when the hopes fade and a new sense of reality begins to appear.
This year is America's "Dark Night" . . .
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Let's Talk About the Weather . . . (with a little bit about politics, too)
My mother called me last night. My hometown, Hamilton, Ohio, was bracing for a snow storm. Not so unusual as this is the middle of February. But what WAS unusual -- in fact so unusual that history didn't really have a Winter to compare it to -- was the fact that the expected 9-11 inches of additional snow was going to drop on a current accumulation of 25 inches! My hometown -- 25 miles from Kentucky -- was looking at a possibility of 3 feet of snow!
This is, to say the least, for that part of the world . . . "unusual". Last Summer and Fall, I started saying that the weather, beginning in November, 2009, was going to go in to a record-breaking almost surreal state of deep-freeze for approximately 30 months . . . roughly until Spring, 2012. That prediction is looking pretty good, so far.
I did my 5 minute prediction spot yesterday for "The Strange Dave Show" and I said that the current brrrrr brrrrr chilly-willy temps would break soon -- but not until after another 3-4 week spell of even COLDER, SNOWIER weather. Then -- An early Spring . . . one in which I expect the weather to go from Ice Age to a balmy beautiful time in a matter of days -- sometime around mid-March, approximately 4 weeks away.
But soon after, say mid to late April, I expect what will be the true form of natural destruction to appear from this brutal spell of weather -- Floods. I believe we are going to see floods of incredible magnitude this Spring, again record-setting in both size and scale.
Lots of people may die in these floods and my fear is that this may set off, in some minds, an apocalyptic take me home Jesus mind-set. Raging flood waters in a crippled economy two years from the "dreaded" 2012 . . . well, if these floods happen, it will likely be the catalyst for an awakening of the darkest most superstitious thoughts.
The United States has drifted, over the past 25 years, from a nation of primarily rational thinkers towards a nation of political extremists, zealots bent on "their way or no way" and so the compromise bone has been weakened and the all speed ahead damn the torpedoes mind-set has been aroused in ways we've never before seen -- at least not in the United States.
My other "big" prediction for the past few years has been the erosion of the U.S. economy. Each year, since 2006, I keep saying that economic news is going from bad to worse, each year (perky little puppy dog that I am) I am told that I am being "negative" -- "think positive" people tell me . . . "it will surely be fixed soon". But I don't think it is going to be fixed soon and I am going to tell you why I believe that is so.
Because . . . the ends are growing stronger while the middle falls apart. Centrist politicians -- what I would surely have been had I been a politician and not gone so anti-corporate due to the death of my child and an insight in to the destructive powers lying in wait due to unbridled corporate control of the legislature -- are dropping like flies.
It is a game for extremists because, to paraphrase retiring centrist Senator Bayh, "money goes to people with a recognizable 'brand'".
"There's just too much brain-dead partisanship, tactical maneuvering for short-term political advantage rather than focusing on the greater good," Bayh told ABC News Tuesday.
In other words, lobbyists' dollars go towards people who make the most noise for their causes. There ain't no money in compromise!!
We now have a Jerry Springer-style government. There is a reason people with 8 teeth and an I. Q. of 73 get on TV . . . but isn't it possible that we have taken this "Reality TV" madness a bit too far . . . that we choose politicians due to sound-bites rather than actual achievement. Nothing gets done unless it furthers a particular cause -- the one with the loudest voice will ultimately win in this environment and in a media-driven world the loudest voice is almost always the RICHEST voice. Corporations rule . . . the average American drools . . . and so the work of enlightened rational men for 225 years goes down the drain.
The great poet William Butler Yeats said it best 90 years ago -- looking back at the destruction of "The Great War" . . .
"The Second Coming"
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
This is, to say the least, for that part of the world . . . "unusual". Last Summer and Fall, I started saying that the weather, beginning in November, 2009, was going to go in to a record-breaking almost surreal state of deep-freeze for approximately 30 months . . . roughly until Spring, 2012. That prediction is looking pretty good, so far.
I did my 5 minute prediction spot yesterday for "The Strange Dave Show" and I said that the current brrrrr brrrrr chilly-willy temps would break soon -- but not until after another 3-4 week spell of even COLDER, SNOWIER weather. Then -- An early Spring . . . one in which I expect the weather to go from Ice Age to a balmy beautiful time in a matter of days -- sometime around mid-March, approximately 4 weeks away.
But soon after, say mid to late April, I expect what will be the true form of natural destruction to appear from this brutal spell of weather -- Floods. I believe we are going to see floods of incredible magnitude this Spring, again record-setting in both size and scale.
Lots of people may die in these floods and my fear is that this may set off, in some minds, an apocalyptic take me home Jesus mind-set. Raging flood waters in a crippled economy two years from the "dreaded" 2012 . . . well, if these floods happen, it will likely be the catalyst for an awakening of the darkest most superstitious thoughts.
The United States has drifted, over the past 25 years, from a nation of primarily rational thinkers towards a nation of political extremists, zealots bent on "their way or no way" and so the compromise bone has been weakened and the all speed ahead damn the torpedoes mind-set has been aroused in ways we've never before seen -- at least not in the United States.
My other "big" prediction for the past few years has been the erosion of the U.S. economy. Each year, since 2006, I keep saying that economic news is going from bad to worse, each year (perky little puppy dog that I am) I am told that I am being "negative" -- "think positive" people tell me . . . "it will surely be fixed soon". But I don't think it is going to be fixed soon and I am going to tell you why I believe that is so.
Because . . . the ends are growing stronger while the middle falls apart. Centrist politicians -- what I would surely have been had I been a politician and not gone so anti-corporate due to the death of my child and an insight in to the destructive powers lying in wait due to unbridled corporate control of the legislature -- are dropping like flies.
It is a game for extremists because, to paraphrase retiring centrist Senator Bayh, "money goes to people with a recognizable 'brand'".
"There's just too much brain-dead partisanship, tactical maneuvering for short-term political advantage rather than focusing on the greater good," Bayh told ABC News Tuesday.
In other words, lobbyists' dollars go towards people who make the most noise for their causes. There ain't no money in compromise!!
We now have a Jerry Springer-style government. There is a reason people with 8 teeth and an I. Q. of 73 get on TV . . . but isn't it possible that we have taken this "Reality TV" madness a bit too far . . . that we choose politicians due to sound-bites rather than actual achievement. Nothing gets done unless it furthers a particular cause -- the one with the loudest voice will ultimately win in this environment and in a media-driven world the loudest voice is almost always the RICHEST voice. Corporations rule . . . the average American drools . . . and so the work of enlightened rational men for 225 years goes down the drain.
The great poet William Butler Yeats said it best 90 years ago -- looking back at the destruction of "The Great War" . . .
"The Second Coming"
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Monday, February 15, 2010
"Khar - Ma" and "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows"
I have spent the past two days thinking through the hows and whys of my new divination decks: "Khar - Ma: Past Lives Divination Deck" and "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows". I was in a channeled frenzy creating them and now that I've breathed life in to them, I must find a way to release them in to the big bad world.
I am an astrologer and so I believe strongly in the power of "all things in the proper time". I have chosen the time I feel is both astrologically and personally correct -- March 4 @ 7:30 pm EST / 4:30 pm PST.
At that time, I am going to do a radio show on Blogtalk Radio where I use the "Khar - Ma" cards for on air readings. I will begin mailing decks the next day . . . March 4th is an important date for my "personal karma" as it was the day back in 2006 in which we learned that our baby Lehna had died in utero.
When the show ends at 6:30 PST it will be almost exactly 4 years to the minute from when we first learned of Lehna's passing and the "wheels" began turning towards extracting me from my comfortable corporate existence -- if Lehna hadn't died I am almost certain that I would have never returned to the "psychic world".
A little about the "Khar - Ma" deck (from my earlier note) . . . the deck has 63 different cards, all with both a picture and a title. Each card is also individually numbered. Sixty-three is an interesting choice mathematically -- 3 x 21 or 7 x 9.
But this deck is designed to have a secondary hidden wrinkle, card # 64. Like the Fool card in a traditional Tarot Deck, this card is numbered both 0 and 64. It is a "wild card" and my plan, as long as I do a limited run, is to "choose" a card and label specifically for the individual purchasing the deck.
In other words, each deck will have a card chosen by me as being thematically significant relative to the purchaser's past lives as well as being an integral part of the deck in doing readings for oneself or others.
And Card 64 also adds another mathematical wrinkle to the deck. It is now 8 x 8 but, more importantly, it also matches the 64 squares on a chess board. To me, this linkage to Chess -- and the metaphors of the Game -- are vitally important to the mathematical magic implicit in this deck.
I feel as if the number 63 is important in pricing the cards but for me, personally, $63 for the deck seems like a lot so I have come up with this, hopefully, symmetrical compromise. I am going to offer BOTH decks for $63. The "Khar - Ma" deck will be $39; "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows" will be $36 (both numbers are inversions of 63 -- 36 is 63 reversed, 39 sort of 63 backwards/upside down) .
The "Khar - Ma" deck will also have a unique card chosen by me for whoever buys the deck. BUT -- this will only last for a time. I am going to do this for the first 99 cards. Each of the cards will be signed and numbered and will also have a unique one-of-a-kind card #64.
After the first 99, though, the price will drop to $36 but card # 64 will no longer be personally selected by me -- although future decks will still not all have the same card 64. The decks will have 5 different options and so the Wheel of Karma continues to turn as to which card shows up.
These are individually created and crafted decks and will have a more "home made" vibe -- on purpose, partly, but also somewhat out of necessity, too. There won't be a box, either. The cards will be shipped tied with either a gold or sliver cord. To purchase the decks, please go to my website -- www.rocknrollpsychic.com -- for ordering information. Shipping will be extra -- $6 per deck within the US. Foreign orders -- well honestly I don't really know yet . . . but if you're interested, please let me know and I will find out.
Again, the "official" launch for the "Khar -Ma" deck is March 4th at 7:30 pm EST / 4:30 pm PST. "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows", (even though it was actually developed AFTER "Khar - Ma" -- the "idea" of it had been percolating for many years), will have an "official" launch BEFORE that of "Khar - Ma" . . . February 26th at 5:00 pm EST / 2:00 pm PST. At that time, I will also do a show on Blogtalk Radio doing on air readings using the deck.
Both decks, however, will not be mailed until March 5th, Lehna's "birthday". Also, March 5th gives me additional time to complete the instruction manual for "Khar - Ma". I am planning on doing a book on "Khar - Ma" and also a book on "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows". . . both hopefully will be complete within the next 6 months.
These decks rock -- truly they do . . . even if I DO say so myself.
Love and Death and Tolerance and HIV
I have lost a child and held her cold little body in my arms and seen my father die right in front of me on the way to the hospital. My girlfriend, Lisa, contracted leukemia when she was 22 and died 5 years later and, as a psychic, I deal with questions of life and death every week of my life. But the thing I want to talk about tonight is AIDS.
Back in the eighties and nineties many of my closest and dearest friends contracted the HIV virus and died. They were beautiful souls, eccentrics with a happy glow or tortured spirits beaten down by their family or society at large (or both) because they were gay. They were artists, all of them, and as artists we shared a love of so many things that the "average" person perhaps does not care for.
It is very disheartening to me after all these years that gay men and women (my beautiful daughter is gay and is the most wonderful child a parent could ever hope for) are still being discriminated against and it is long past time that we, as a collective, wake up and recognize that we are all brothers and sisters on this planet--all of us.
It doesn't matter what color we are, what language we speak, or what our sexual orientation might be. We are all spiritually connected, each and every one of us. God is within every soul here on earth and to hate another person (and that divine spark within them) is, to me anyway, akin to hating one's self.
AIDS is still a pandemic claiming millions of victims each year, both here and throughout the world, especially in Africa. Many AIDS victims are children. It breaks my heart to think of any child suffering and it is also very distressing to know that AIDS victims not only suffer physically from this deadly disease, but also suffer due to the ignorance and intolerance of others who too often show nothing but scorn and condemnation to those who are afflicted with the virus.
Love is the answer--the only answer many times--to most of life's problems. It is critical, I believe, that we love those of us who need love when they need it most. I miss all of my friends who died, due to HIV, so much. You never forget.
I loved them and my hope is that all of those souls on this planet who are sick or discriminated against in any way can find some love, somewhere, in their lives. It will make the world--and the one who loves--better . . . in every way.
Back in the eighties and nineties many of my closest and dearest friends contracted the HIV virus and died. They were beautiful souls, eccentrics with a happy glow or tortured spirits beaten down by their family or society at large (or both) because they were gay. They were artists, all of them, and as artists we shared a love of so many things that the "average" person perhaps does not care for.
It is very disheartening to me after all these years that gay men and women (my beautiful daughter is gay and is the most wonderful child a parent could ever hope for) are still being discriminated against and it is long past time that we, as a collective, wake up and recognize that we are all brothers and sisters on this planet--all of us.
It doesn't matter what color we are, what language we speak, or what our sexual orientation might be. We are all spiritually connected, each and every one of us. God is within every soul here on earth and to hate another person (and that divine spark within them) is, to me anyway, akin to hating one's self.
AIDS is still a pandemic claiming millions of victims each year, both here and throughout the world, especially in Africa. Many AIDS victims are children. It breaks my heart to think of any child suffering and it is also very distressing to know that AIDS victims not only suffer physically from this deadly disease, but also suffer due to the ignorance and intolerance of others who too often show nothing but scorn and condemnation to those who are afflicted with the virus.
Love is the answer--the only answer many times--to most of life's problems. It is critical, I believe, that we love those of us who need love when they need it most. I miss all of my friends who died, due to HIV, so much. You never forget.
I loved them and my hope is that all of those souls on this planet who are sick or discriminated against in any way can find some love, somewhere, in their lives. It will make the world--and the one who loves--better . . . in every way.
The Mercury Retrograde Song
This was originally posted on 9/29/09
**play a little Prince, "1999", first and then – sing along**
Well it started off so nice then everything just went hog wild
I went to the bank it seems my loan had been mis-filed
all the people there they turned around to look at me
then all of a sudden -- two cars run right into a tree
well well the planets they are whacky
seems the sun must have turned away
don’t understand it neither but here is all I got to say
Mur cure EE’s the wrong way
Ret ruh grade oh yay
Call me another day
I don’t think I wanna play
Well, Time passed so slowly, everything just turned to mush
I met four girls but they all seemed to have a crush
on the guy next door I just don’t think that that’s quite fair
he’s only 5’ 2” so what if he’s got all his hair-airrrr?
well well the planets they are whacky
Ve-nus it has gone away
hair plugs they are worthless
that is really all I got to say
hair plugs – no way
anyway my hair’s all grey
but then the day arrived the day we’d all been waiting for
people went outside no longer curled up on the floor
the stars shine bright the Heavens are no longer mad
we shake our heads and say “damn that SHIT WAS BAD!!”
well, well, It's over now the clocks’ll work,
it's all gonna be just fine,
Tonight, I'm gonna party like it's 9-29-0-9
say it one more time
9 - 29 - 0 - 9
It’s direct everything will fall in line
it’s 9 - 29 - 0 - 9
Thaaaaaaaannnnnnnnk yoooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu, thank ya thank ya very much
**play a little Prince, "1999", first and then – sing along**
Well it started off so nice then everything just went hog wild
I went to the bank it seems my loan had been mis-filed
all the people there they turned around to look at me
then all of a sudden -- two cars run right into a tree
well well the planets they are whacky
seems the sun must have turned away
don’t understand it neither but here is all I got to say
Mur cure EE’s the wrong way
Ret ruh grade oh yay
Call me another day
I don’t think I wanna play
Well, Time passed so slowly, everything just turned to mush
I met four girls but they all seemed to have a crush
on the guy next door I just don’t think that that’s quite fair
he’s only 5’ 2” so what if he’s got all his hair-airrrr?
well well the planets they are whacky
Ve-nus it has gone away
hair plugs they are worthless
that is really all I got to say
hair plugs – no way
anyway my hair’s all grey
but then the day arrived the day we’d all been waiting for
people went outside no longer curled up on the floor
the stars shine bright the Heavens are no longer mad
we shake our heads and say “damn that SHIT WAS BAD!!”
well, well, It's over now the clocks’ll work,
it's all gonna be just fine,
Tonight, I'm gonna party like it's 9-29-0-9
say it one more time
9 - 29 - 0 - 9
It’s direct everything will fall in line
it’s 9 - 29 - 0 - 9
Thaaaaaaaannnnnnnnk yoooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu, thank ya thank ya very much
Canaries in The Cosmic Coal Mine
**This is a re-post of a re-post (October 11th, 2009 --I originally posted this back on April 25th, 2009).
I was talking to a friend this morning and we were talking about "Ascension" and physical manifestations of that energy and I was telling her about my experience in April. 424. I thought that date was significant, so significant that I made up a banner (as I often do !!) with that date. I am planning this month to go to(wards) California but rather than go straight there -- well that would just be toooo normal, I am taking an alternate route, much like when you want to fly from Ohio to LA and instead of stopping someplace "normal" along the way -- maybe St. Louis or Phoenix, instead the plane goes backwards to Philadelphia or Nova Scotia and then turns back around and heads West, again.
Anyway, I am doing one of THOSE routes but I noticed that the date I leave is going to be very close to six months AFTER this experience. Lots of times things happen in my life exactly six months or a year, to the day, after something that, in retrospect, you can see is VERY connected . . . anyway, my "experience" the night of 424 -- a down payment, perhaps, to what happens 10/25 ??**
Well well well . . . TGIFS Thank God it is Fucking Saturday because yesterday was the Friday Night Lala Land Crazy Town Express . . . at least that is the way it felt. All night and throughout much of the early morning today I felt this "vibe" . . . this "thing" that was . . . more than just a little "unusual".
At first I noticed that I was a little irritable . . . primarily because my trip to Columbus didn't happen and I was stuck at home with zero to do. I went to the gym--a little distracted, but not bad--and got home around 8 pm. I noticed HARD CORE chemtrails over the apartment . . . you say contrail I say chemtrail--thicker and more intense than I had ever seen before.
The night before (Thursday) I had gone through a bit of an existential "naming dilemma" . . . . to be or not to be . . . The Rock n Roll Psychic? Sometimes I get sort of tired of things and since I don't have hair anymore to cut and/or color I find that I need to do something else I guess to stir the pot so I thought "should I be more SERIOUS and drop this little title . . . in favor of something more respectable, like Andy the Wonder Dog or Madame Andre (come to think of it, I have used--as a joke--Madame Andre for a long time) . . . maybe the Seer from Over Here" . . . well, you know, I was bored and fuckin' with myself--a bad, but constant, it seems, habit.
All of this passes with nary a hitch; I recognize my spiritual brotherhood with the name and settle in for a little myspace/facebook action before napper's time . . . soon--and I mean REAL SOON--after I got back from the gym I noticed a kind of "buzz" in the air, things just "felt funky" . . . I am very plugged in to subtle energy shifts and I noted this was "odd" but didn't thank so much about it . . .
until I noticed that my head was starting to "expand" . . . as an exercise for astral projection many times people will "push" energy out of the body and sometimes will feel as if their head is getting "big", filled with something, like air but not exactly. I was starting to feel this and thought "wow, what's up?"
So being the astrologer I am, I looked at the ephemeris (a book showing where all the planets are on a specific day) and noted I had a VERY intense grouping of transiting planets all kicking in right then: a Triple conjunction of Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron . . . EXACTLY on my MC; Pluto . . . EXACT conjunction of my North Node; Mars-Venus EXACT conjunction in Aries . . . EXACTLY square my natal Venus (what I assumed the most likely candidate making me cranky); New Moon coming up in an hour or so in Taurus square my Chiron and opposite my Vertex. In other words, a perfect storm astrologically.
Really it was no wonder I was feeling looney, especially about my career . . . plus my resident astrologer . . . badass Southern Wild Child Rocker T. Watts . . . had already warned me . . . Mars (as well as Venus) is square Pluto this weekend which is funky anyway but in my chart it is doubly, maybe triply, funky . . .
So I said, on facebook, "consider me pretty much like a fall down drunk this weekend and don't hold me to anything I say hahahahahahahahahaha . . . Wild Turkey and Mars-Pluto . . . stay off the SPIRITS hahahahahahahaha and don't answer the phone."
But it just kept getting goofier and goofier; it was like when you get high and look at your hands a lot . . . I was somehow watching myself while simultaneously responding to all this CRAZEE energy--and writing it all down, pretty much play by play on facebook. I was tripping with the "astrological" Brady's . . . ho lee fuck . . . hide the light bulbs . . . and, even for me, it WAS weird!!!!
At 11:50 pm I wrote this: "Normally I am about as Zen as Zen can be but I truly do "feel" some kind of very strange "electrical" vibe . . . I don't THINK I'm crazy . . . very unusual vibe tonight VERY unusual . . . wow wow wow!!"
I didn't really know what the fuck was going on hahahahahahaha but I kept going from pissed to bliss baby to pissed to like straight jacket insane to who knows what . . . all in like 4 minutes. And then all over again.
But the thing that was the most "intense" was that I started having something very much akin to spontaneous O.B.E.'s (out of body experiences) . . . I could "feel" energy and everything was "magnetic", too . . . I also felt it in my teeth, like if you drink something metallic tasting, and my arms were "tingly" . . . shit was also just more "Colorful", like Fantasia on acid kind of intense . . . the colors were vibrating and had a low level glow, like a slow hum to them.
And, later, my dreams -- weird, whacked, also super intense and super fucking emotional, too . . . but weird emotions, hard really to describe. The dreams were also in like 3-D (and no, honestly, I was not taking anything hahahahahahaha) and so that only added to the overall whacked flavor of the day.
While all this was going on I was documenting the ins and outs of my cosmic journey online, sort of a Hunter S. Thompson on the way to Vegas kind of gig, thinking "dude, people are REALLY going to think you are STRANGE" . . . which, I guess, they probably did.
But this morning I noticed my friend Patty had posted this: "Having some very stange vibes this evening...and earlier today...Cant explain it, and not sure I understand it or even like it...Something like energy pressuring my head and Body...currents of unlevelness, yet filled with strength....dont get it....who know? ANYBODY?"
I thought to myself "THANK GOD . . . someone else had the same thing!!" Maybe I am only slightly neurotic and not having a full-blown psychotic breakdown!!
Today I posted this: "strange strange strange . . . I think (based on my profession) that once the dust settles this will turn out to be a good thing . . . I was clairvoyant before but . . . now . . . whoa!! . . . something happened yesterday . . . don't know what hahahahahahahaha . . . I have had unusual peak divine experiences that CHANGED ME but this . . . thing . . . was different . . . wow
it was like my head "got big" and I had "the swim head thang" like you're drunk and I just felt this PULSING PULSING thing . . . like big speakers with the bass pumped up . . .
I was flat out clairvoyant before, I think, but for seem reason it seems like it has kicked in even more . . . don't know if this is like a short-term blip or the way it's gonna be . . . from now on . . . I can only smile and shake my head . . . WTF!!
something very interesting happened last night and I do (at least in the short-term, we'll see how long it lasts) feel different and my psychic vision is revved up . . . and it is usually pretty revved up anyway . "
Crazeeeee . . . the weirdest most alien abductee where the Hell am I mommmmmeeeeeeee experience I think I have ever had. Today, now, finally, I am feeling more back to "normal" but . . . THAT was intense.
And today, I feel somehow more alive more plugged in than ever before. Did something "happen" or was it bad tacos . . . don't know, exactly, but I do know this . . .
There is a God and from time to time God peeks in to say hello. I think last night he/she was checking in, playing with the wind, making his/her presence known.
There were earthquakes all over the world last night, including one, for God's sake, here in Ohio! Lots of people, not just Patty and me, reported "strange" feelings from last night. "Something" happened. I think this happened because we are "shifting" . . . little by little we're waking up to a higher vibration, a vibration more fitting, more attuned to God, to divine consciousness.
Last night was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride . . . but I think the ride from here on out is likely to be even wilder.
I was talking to a friend this morning and we were talking about "Ascension" and physical manifestations of that energy and I was telling her about my experience in April. 424. I thought that date was significant, so significant that I made up a banner (as I often do !!) with that date. I am planning this month to go to(wards) California but rather than go straight there -- well that would just be toooo normal, I am taking an alternate route, much like when you want to fly from Ohio to LA and instead of stopping someplace "normal" along the way -- maybe St. Louis or Phoenix, instead the plane goes backwards to Philadelphia or Nova Scotia and then turns back around and heads West, again.
Anyway, I am doing one of THOSE routes but I noticed that the date I leave is going to be very close to six months AFTER this experience. Lots of times things happen in my life exactly six months or a year, to the day, after something that, in retrospect, you can see is VERY connected . . . anyway, my "experience" the night of 424 -- a down payment, perhaps, to what happens 10/25 ??**
Well well well . . . TGIFS Thank God it is Fucking Saturday because yesterday was the Friday Night Lala Land Crazy Town Express . . . at least that is the way it felt. All night and throughout much of the early morning today I felt this "vibe" . . . this "thing" that was . . . more than just a little "unusual".
At first I noticed that I was a little irritable . . . primarily because my trip to Columbus didn't happen and I was stuck at home with zero to do. I went to the gym--a little distracted, but not bad--and got home around 8 pm. I noticed HARD CORE chemtrails over the apartment . . . you say contrail I say chemtrail--thicker and more intense than I had ever seen before.
The night before (Thursday) I had gone through a bit of an existential "naming dilemma" . . . . to be or not to be . . . The Rock n Roll Psychic? Sometimes I get sort of tired of things and since I don't have hair anymore to cut and/or color I find that I need to do something else I guess to stir the pot so I thought "should I be more SERIOUS and drop this little title . . . in favor of something more respectable, like Andy the Wonder Dog or Madame Andre (come to think of it, I have used--as a joke--Madame Andre for a long time) . . . maybe the Seer from Over Here" . . . well, you know, I was bored and fuckin' with myself--a bad, but constant, it seems, habit.
All of this passes with nary a hitch; I recognize my spiritual brotherhood with the name and settle in for a little myspace/facebook action before napper's time . . . soon--and I mean REAL SOON--after I got back from the gym I noticed a kind of "buzz" in the air, things just "felt funky" . . . I am very plugged in to subtle energy shifts and I noted this was "odd" but didn't thank so much about it . . .
until I noticed that my head was starting to "expand" . . . as an exercise for astral projection many times people will "push" energy out of the body and sometimes will feel as if their head is getting "big", filled with something, like air but not exactly. I was starting to feel this and thought "wow, what's up?"
So being the astrologer I am, I looked at the ephemeris (a book showing where all the planets are on a specific day) and noted I had a VERY intense grouping of transiting planets all kicking in right then: a Triple conjunction of Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron . . . EXACTLY on my MC; Pluto . . . EXACT conjunction of my North Node; Mars-Venus EXACT conjunction in Aries . . . EXACTLY square my natal Venus (what I assumed the most likely candidate making me cranky); New Moon coming up in an hour or so in Taurus square my Chiron and opposite my Vertex. In other words, a perfect storm astrologically.
Really it was no wonder I was feeling looney, especially about my career . . . plus my resident astrologer . . . badass Southern Wild Child Rocker T. Watts . . . had already warned me . . . Mars (as well as Venus) is square Pluto this weekend which is funky anyway but in my chart it is doubly, maybe triply, funky . . .
So I said, on facebook, "consider me pretty much like a fall down drunk this weekend and don't hold me to anything I say hahahahahahahahahaha . . . Wild Turkey and Mars-Pluto . . . stay off the SPIRITS hahahahahahahaha and don't answer the phone."
But it just kept getting goofier and goofier; it was like when you get high and look at your hands a lot . . . I was somehow watching myself while simultaneously responding to all this CRAZEE energy--and writing it all down, pretty much play by play on facebook. I was tripping with the "astrological" Brady's . . . ho lee fuck . . . hide the light bulbs . . . and, even for me, it WAS weird!!!!
At 11:50 pm I wrote this: "Normally I am about as Zen as Zen can be but I truly do "feel" some kind of very strange "electrical" vibe . . . I don't THINK I'm crazy . . . very unusual vibe tonight VERY unusual . . . wow wow wow!!"
I didn't really know what the fuck was going on hahahahahahaha but I kept going from pissed to bliss baby to pissed to like straight jacket insane to who knows what . . . all in like 4 minutes. And then all over again.
But the thing that was the most "intense" was that I started having something very much akin to spontaneous O.B.E.'s (out of body experiences) . . . I could "feel" energy and everything was "magnetic", too . . . I also felt it in my teeth, like if you drink something metallic tasting, and my arms were "tingly" . . . shit was also just more "Colorful", like Fantasia on acid kind of intense . . . the colors were vibrating and had a low level glow, like a slow hum to them.
And, later, my dreams -- weird, whacked, also super intense and super fucking emotional, too . . . but weird emotions, hard really to describe. The dreams were also in like 3-D (and no, honestly, I was not taking anything hahahahahahaha) and so that only added to the overall whacked flavor of the day.
While all this was going on I was documenting the ins and outs of my cosmic journey online, sort of a Hunter S. Thompson on the way to Vegas kind of gig, thinking "dude, people are REALLY going to think you are STRANGE" . . . which, I guess, they probably did.
But this morning I noticed my friend Patty had posted this: "Having some very stange vibes this evening...and earlier today...Cant explain it, and not sure I understand it or even like it...Something like energy pressuring my head and Body...currents of unlevelness, yet filled with strength....dont get it....who know? ANYBODY?"
I thought to myself "THANK GOD . . . someone else had the same thing!!" Maybe I am only slightly neurotic and not having a full-blown psychotic breakdown!!
Today I posted this: "strange strange strange . . . I think (based on my profession) that once the dust settles this will turn out to be a good thing . . . I was clairvoyant before but . . . now . . . whoa!! . . . something happened yesterday . . . don't know what hahahahahahahaha . . . I have had unusual peak divine experiences that CHANGED ME but this . . . thing . . . was different . . . wow
it was like my head "got big" and I had "the swim head thang" like you're drunk and I just felt this PULSING PULSING thing . . . like big speakers with the bass pumped up . . .
I was flat out clairvoyant before, I think, but for seem reason it seems like it has kicked in even more . . . don't know if this is like a short-term blip or the way it's gonna be . . . from now on . . . I can only smile and shake my head . . . WTF!!
something very interesting happened last night and I do (at least in the short-term, we'll see how long it lasts) feel different and my psychic vision is revved up . . . and it is usually pretty revved up anyway . "
Crazeeeee . . . the weirdest most alien abductee where the Hell am I mommmmmeeeeeeee experience I think I have ever had. Today, now, finally, I am feeling more back to "normal" but . . . THAT was intense.
And today, I feel somehow more alive more plugged in than ever before. Did something "happen" or was it bad tacos . . . don't know, exactly, but I do know this . . .
There is a God and from time to time God peeks in to say hello. I think last night he/she was checking in, playing with the wind, making his/her presence known.
There were earthquakes all over the world last night, including one, for God's sake, here in Ohio! Lots of people, not just Patty and me, reported "strange" feelings from last night. "Something" happened. I think this happened because we are "shifting" . . . little by little we're waking up to a higher vibration, a vibration more fitting, more attuned to God, to divine consciousness.
Last night was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride . . . but I think the ride from here on out is likely to be even wilder.
What I Believe
**I originally posted this about a year and a half ago, but it is still valid -- and, hopefully, relevant, today.**
Over the past few months, as I have "come out" more and more again as a clairvoyant and started hosting "Rock n Roll Psychic Radio", I have received a lot of inquiries asking my opinion on a variety of topics, such as past lives, spirituality, psychic ability, and several others . . . so I have decided to respond to a few of them here.
GOD -- Yes I believe very strongly in a divine creative force in the universe, what we call God. I also believe that God is in all things, not only people, but animals and trees and mosquitos and all other living creatures--and I think Mother Earth is also a living breathing spiritually-infused entity, as well. God's presence and Love is in ALL things.
Past Lives -- I believe very strongly that reincarnation is true. I also believe that past life influences will often "seep into" this life and that an awareness of past lives will (a) give insight into optimal ways to lead this life and (b) confirm a stronger sense of spirituality and God-awareness.
I do both "past life" readings and "past life" regressions. I also believe I can discern past life influences through astrology. In my work as a clairvoyant, my readings are more easily quantified and validated than "past life" readings which can never be fully "proven"; it is all subject to debate. If I say that if you drive down the street and make a left turn and there is a big white building with a covered wagon in the front yard and it is there then I am right . . . if it is not then I am wrong.
"Remote viewing" can be validated . . . but all past life "influences" are subject to, at its core, some level of "faith".
Religion -- I have such a deep faith in God and the spiritual interconnectedness of all beings. I believe it with every fiber of my soul. I am also intellectual enough to realize that it is only an opinion and cannot be "proven".
I am what might be called an "Esoteric Christian". That means that I believe in the divinity of Jesus the Christ as a spiritual light, a true master and a historical figure--a man who physically lived.
I believe HE is the TRUE LIGHT.
I believe deeply in the spiritual teachings of Jesus as captured in the New Testament and other source material. However, I think that we do not really follow the teachings of Jesus very well in this culture and so, on that level, I am extremely disappointed in Western Christianity.
I think there are many wonderful spiritual teachers on the planet--both now and in years past. I feel that Islam is a beautiful religion, too, and believe in the divinity of Muhammed as well as Jesus. Does that make me Islamic? I don't really know.
The two "religions" I feel the most "intense" connections with are (a) Russian Orthodox Christianity and (b) Sufism. I don't go to church any more and am not a member or follower of Orthodoxy or Sufism but I do, on a soul level, feel drawn to both.
God loves all creatures. All religions that honor God and Mother Earth and her lovely brood is a "true" religion. Just as there are many languages and many places on this Earth, all unique creative aspects of the Divine, so too are there many religions that also creatively depict and honor the Source. To say that one religion has all the answers and all others miss the point is nothing but ego and arrogance and is blasphemous in the extreme. Whenever people look to God, whether alone or within a group, in that moment they are practicing "religion".
I honor ALL religious traditions . . . so long as they come from a place of love. If there is love in their heart then they are beautiful in God's eyes and the followers of those religions are also beautiful in my eyes as well.
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white they are perfect in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world.
I sang that song in Sunday School in Ohio when I was a little boy. It is spiritual TRUTH. Why do the churches who sing this song so often live their lives in variance with this? Jesus is hope and light . . . for ALL races ALL cultures and people . . .
I also hold several "heretical" viewpoints . . . ideas that in a different time might lead me to have a shorter more violent life, i.e. dangerous notions that would, literally, get me killed. That "memory" is a part of my "karmic DNA" but . . . here goes:
1) I believe Jesus had brothers and sisters, I believe he was married to Mary Magdalene (who was also a spiritual master like Jesus) and I believe they had children. Is the whole Davinci Code Holy Blood Holy Grail thing literally true? I don't know but I think that version of Jesus is CLOSER to the truth than the myth portrayed in Western Christianity.
2) I believe religion is an experience not a teaching. I believe one can connect to God without the benefit of clergy and so I am a Gnostic and, historically, a religious trouble maker.
3) I believe in the power of Nature, that everything is filled with light and spirit. I am a pantheist, what some might call a Pagan, others would call a Witch. Once again a heretic and rebel and a candidate for a nice warm fire beneath my feet.
4) I also believe that I have a "spiritual mission" and that is to help others find their way to the God within them. I use my clairvoyant abilities as really just a tool to get attention for my "ideas" about both religion AND politics but being "The Rock n Roll Psychic" is not truly all that I am . . . I am primarily one who is a seeker after God . . . I want to know God and have God know me . . . and I am looking to share that search now more and more with others who also feel this burning flame within them. I feel it and I know others feel it, as well.
Psychic Ability -- During my first go round as a psychic back in the '80's and 90's I thought that my "ability" was a "skill" . . . something that I developed and "mastered" (on whatever level that may have been) much like one might develop a high level skill as a musician or athlete or surgeon. I took ownership of it and, as a result, had kind of an "ego" attachment to it.
I also believed everyone had this and could, with a little work, develop it just like with enough time and patience one could learn to play the guitar or be a good chess player.
I have changed "my tune" on both counts. I think of psychic ability as a "gift" . . . one given to me directly from the creative source we label as God. As a result of this gift also comes the responsibility to develop it and use it as a honor to God and not as an honor to myself.
Since I am by nature both lazy and egotistical (hahahahaha not a surprise I fear to some who know me) I sometimes "rebel" and feel the need to play and/or "act out" . . . the wild child hell raisin' psychic.
I think now that Spirit often sees me as a cute little child playing in the streets and I feel their love and patience with me but I also know there is a reason I have been given this gift and the time and money (and temperament) to fully develop it.
I now recognize my "abilities" as a spiritual calling and not a vocational one. I am a "psychic" because I allow that label to attach to me but truly I am just someone trying to find his way back to Spirit, a God-thirsty beggar on a glass wire, dancing on the edge, trying to live in two worlds all at the same time.
LOVE is the answer, the only answer . . . the truest expression of the God within. That is my "truth".
Over the past few months, as I have "come out" more and more again as a clairvoyant and started hosting "Rock n Roll Psychic Radio", I have received a lot of inquiries asking my opinion on a variety of topics, such as past lives, spirituality, psychic ability, and several others . . . so I have decided to respond to a few of them here.
GOD -- Yes I believe very strongly in a divine creative force in the universe, what we call God. I also believe that God is in all things, not only people, but animals and trees and mosquitos and all other living creatures--and I think Mother Earth is also a living breathing spiritually-infused entity, as well. God's presence and Love is in ALL things.
Past Lives -- I believe very strongly that reincarnation is true. I also believe that past life influences will often "seep into" this life and that an awareness of past lives will (a) give insight into optimal ways to lead this life and (b) confirm a stronger sense of spirituality and God-awareness.
I do both "past life" readings and "past life" regressions. I also believe I can discern past life influences through astrology. In my work as a clairvoyant, my readings are more easily quantified and validated than "past life" readings which can never be fully "proven"; it is all subject to debate. If I say that if you drive down the street and make a left turn and there is a big white building with a covered wagon in the front yard and it is there then I am right . . . if it is not then I am wrong.
"Remote viewing" can be validated . . . but all past life "influences" are subject to, at its core, some level of "faith".
Religion -- I have such a deep faith in God and the spiritual interconnectedness of all beings. I believe it with every fiber of my soul. I am also intellectual enough to realize that it is only an opinion and cannot be "proven".
I am what might be called an "Esoteric Christian". That means that I believe in the divinity of Jesus the Christ as a spiritual light, a true master and a historical figure--a man who physically lived.
I believe HE is the TRUE LIGHT.
I believe deeply in the spiritual teachings of Jesus as captured in the New Testament and other source material. However, I think that we do not really follow the teachings of Jesus very well in this culture and so, on that level, I am extremely disappointed in Western Christianity.
I think there are many wonderful spiritual teachers on the planet--both now and in years past. I feel that Islam is a beautiful religion, too, and believe in the divinity of Muhammed as well as Jesus. Does that make me Islamic? I don't really know.
The two "religions" I feel the most "intense" connections with are (a) Russian Orthodox Christianity and (b) Sufism. I don't go to church any more and am not a member or follower of Orthodoxy or Sufism but I do, on a soul level, feel drawn to both.
God loves all creatures. All religions that honor God and Mother Earth and her lovely brood is a "true" religion. Just as there are many languages and many places on this Earth, all unique creative aspects of the Divine, so too are there many religions that also creatively depict and honor the Source. To say that one religion has all the answers and all others miss the point is nothing but ego and arrogance and is blasphemous in the extreme. Whenever people look to God, whether alone or within a group, in that moment they are practicing "religion".
I honor ALL religious traditions . . . so long as they come from a place of love. If there is love in their heart then they are beautiful in God's eyes and the followers of those religions are also beautiful in my eyes as well.
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white they are perfect in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world.
I sang that song in Sunday School in Ohio when I was a little boy. It is spiritual TRUTH. Why do the churches who sing this song so often live their lives in variance with this? Jesus is hope and light . . . for ALL races ALL cultures and people . . .
I also hold several "heretical" viewpoints . . . ideas that in a different time might lead me to have a shorter more violent life, i.e. dangerous notions that would, literally, get me killed. That "memory" is a part of my "karmic DNA" but . . . here goes:
1) I believe Jesus had brothers and sisters, I believe he was married to Mary Magdalene (who was also a spiritual master like Jesus) and I believe they had children. Is the whole Davinci Code Holy Blood Holy Grail thing literally true? I don't know but I think that version of Jesus is CLOSER to the truth than the myth portrayed in Western Christianity.
2) I believe religion is an experience not a teaching. I believe one can connect to God without the benefit of clergy and so I am a Gnostic and, historically, a religious trouble maker.
3) I believe in the power of Nature, that everything is filled with light and spirit. I am a pantheist, what some might call a Pagan, others would call a Witch. Once again a heretic and rebel and a candidate for a nice warm fire beneath my feet.
4) I also believe that I have a "spiritual mission" and that is to help others find their way to the God within them. I use my clairvoyant abilities as really just a tool to get attention for my "ideas" about both religion AND politics but being "The Rock n Roll Psychic" is not truly all that I am . . . I am primarily one who is a seeker after God . . . I want to know God and have God know me . . . and I am looking to share that search now more and more with others who also feel this burning flame within them. I feel it and I know others feel it, as well.
Psychic Ability -- During my first go round as a psychic back in the '80's and 90's I thought that my "ability" was a "skill" . . . something that I developed and "mastered" (on whatever level that may have been) much like one might develop a high level skill as a musician or athlete or surgeon. I took ownership of it and, as a result, had kind of an "ego" attachment to it.
I also believed everyone had this and could, with a little work, develop it just like with enough time and patience one could learn to play the guitar or be a good chess player.
I have changed "my tune" on both counts. I think of psychic ability as a "gift" . . . one given to me directly from the creative source we label as God. As a result of this gift also comes the responsibility to develop it and use it as a honor to God and not as an honor to myself.
Since I am by nature both lazy and egotistical (hahahahaha not a surprise I fear to some who know me) I sometimes "rebel" and feel the need to play and/or "act out" . . . the wild child hell raisin' psychic.
I think now that Spirit often sees me as a cute little child playing in the streets and I feel their love and patience with me but I also know there is a reason I have been given this gift and the time and money (and temperament) to fully develop it.
I now recognize my "abilities" as a spiritual calling and not a vocational one. I am a "psychic" because I allow that label to attach to me but truly I am just someone trying to find his way back to Spirit, a God-thirsty beggar on a glass wire, dancing on the edge, trying to live in two worlds all at the same time.
LOVE is the answer, the only answer . . . the truest expression of the God within. That is my "truth".
Cover Girls
Sometimes when I look at people I see something akin to a trail of past life influences almost literally tagging along behind them. This is rare, but when I do see it (to me anyway) it always suggests someone with a long history of achievement in a particular field--the most obvious place one finds this is with artists: painters, dancers, violinists, jugglers, whatever. But singers--great singers--are a breed all their own and these nine women all have that very distinct "karmic gift" . . . this doesn't mean their lives are easy or even that they will be "successful" . . . but it does suggest that they have "something" that the others just don't.
Two women stand out on this list because the very first time I saw them their aura was SO BIG that I was totally blown away. The most intense "psychic reaction" ever, I think, was with Jill Scott. That is a woman bringing a LONG line of music with her. The other one is Lauryn Hill. She, too, is reaching WAY back with a strong musical "history".
I love Amy Winehouse--no matter what her personal life may be, as an artist she truly takes my breath away with how good she is . . . but the one singer on this list who, I believe, is the most karmically "gifted" . . . the one with the true finger print of God on her chest and in her heart is . . . Ms. Aguilera . . . a star of the opera (yes that is the image I always see with her) many many many times. I believe she is the MOST "gifted", at least based on my perception of her "aura".
Past live "influences" and "karmic gifts" . . . and "debts" . . . are a weird and wonderful and certainly controversial topic for discussion. But I do think these women (and of course they are not the only ones, either--just ones who stand out to me in dramatic ways) have "that thing".
I am also including a story I have told many times about my "vision" of another singer and my guess as to who he may have been . . .
1. Christina Aguilera
2. Marianne Faithfull
3. Ute Lemper
4. Amy Winehouse
5. Jill Scott
6. Lauren Hill
7. Diana Ross
8. Mariah Carey
9. Shelby Lynne
********************************************
"The Reincarnation of Buddy Holly"
I was listening to the radio back in 1983 and heard a new song by a young artist I had never heard before and when I looked out in to the living room by the stereo I saw, pretty much plain as day, an image of Buddy Holly. Even for me, this was sort of a "strange" thing and I thought it "odd" but then much of my life has "been odd" for quite awhile and so I went about my business--the song ended, Buddy said adios.
Next time I heard the song on the radio, same thing--out of nowhere VERY intense image of Buddy Holly, glasses, guitar, the whole Buddy Holly "thang". I began noticing that every time this artist came on the radio I saw Buddy Holly's image but I ONLY saw it when this artist played.
The song was a hit but all hits fade and then, brand new song shows up and poof once again: Buddy Holly. I didn't realize it at the time but it turned out that this was the second release by this young artist. I theorized that this singer was perhaps the reincarnation of Buddy Holly and I tried to find out if the math for this held true in any way. This was back in the dark ages before there was such a thing as the "internet" . . . yes those days did exist . . . and it was not an easy thing to confirm.
Later, I found something which I think is very intriguing. Buddy Hollly died, along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, on February 3, 1959. The artist I heard all those years ago, if my "theory" were true, I supposed should have been born pretty close to nine months later, in November of 1959.
The artist's birthday was, in fact, November 5, 1959--nine months and two days after Buddy Holly died. His breakthrough album, "Cuts Like a Knife", was recorded in 1982, when he was 22 years old--the age Buddy Holly was when he died.
In an ironic twist, that same year my girl friend, who lived with me at the time, contracted leukemia. She was also 22 years old; sadly, Lisa died five years later.
The artist I heard all those years ago . . . and the person I feel is likely to be the reincarnation of the great Buddy Holly is . . . Bryan Adams.
Two women stand out on this list because the very first time I saw them their aura was SO BIG that I was totally blown away. The most intense "psychic reaction" ever, I think, was with Jill Scott. That is a woman bringing a LONG line of music with her. The other one is Lauryn Hill. She, too, is reaching WAY back with a strong musical "history".
I love Amy Winehouse--no matter what her personal life may be, as an artist she truly takes my breath away with how good she is . . . but the one singer on this list who, I believe, is the most karmically "gifted" . . . the one with the true finger print of God on her chest and in her heart is . . . Ms. Aguilera . . . a star of the opera (yes that is the image I always see with her) many many many times. I believe she is the MOST "gifted", at least based on my perception of her "aura".
Past live "influences" and "karmic gifts" . . . and "debts" . . . are a weird and wonderful and certainly controversial topic for discussion. But I do think these women (and of course they are not the only ones, either--just ones who stand out to me in dramatic ways) have "that thing".
I am also including a story I have told many times about my "vision" of another singer and my guess as to who he may have been . . .
1. Christina Aguilera
2. Marianne Faithfull
3. Ute Lemper
4. Amy Winehouse
5. Jill Scott
6. Lauren Hill
7. Diana Ross
8. Mariah Carey
9. Shelby Lynne
**************************
"The Reincarnation of Buddy Holly"
I was listening to the radio back in 1983 and heard a new song by a young artist I had never heard before and when I looked out in to the living room by the stereo I saw, pretty much plain as day, an image of Buddy Holly. Even for me, this was sort of a "strange" thing and I thought it "odd" but then much of my life has "been odd" for quite awhile and so I went about my business--the song ended, Buddy said adios.
Next time I heard the song on the radio, same thing--out of nowhere VERY intense image of Buddy Holly, glasses, guitar, the whole Buddy Holly "thang". I began noticing that every time this artist came on the radio I saw Buddy Holly's image but I ONLY saw it when this artist played.
The song was a hit but all hits fade and then, brand new song shows up and poof once again: Buddy Holly. I didn't realize it at the time but it turned out that this was the second release by this young artist. I theorized that this singer was perhaps the reincarnation of Buddy Holly and I tried to find out if the math for this held true in any way. This was back in the dark ages before there was such a thing as the "internet" . . . yes those days did exist . . . and it was not an easy thing to confirm.
Later, I found something which I think is very intriguing. Buddy Hollly died, along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, on February 3, 1959. The artist I heard all those years ago, if my "theory" were true, I supposed should have been born pretty close to nine months later, in November of 1959.
The artist's birthday was, in fact, November 5, 1959--nine months and two days after Buddy Holly died. His breakthrough album, "Cuts Like a Knife", was recorded in 1982, when he was 22 years old--the age Buddy Holly was when he died.
In an ironic twist, that same year my girl friend, who lived with me at the time, contracted leukemia. She was also 22 years old; sadly, Lisa died five years later.
The artist I heard all those years ago . . . and the person I feel is likely to be the reincarnation of the great Buddy Holly is . . . Bryan Adams.
Butterfly Rascalian
A couple of weeks back, my friend Stacy Lupinacci called me and said that she was going to do an article on the "Spiritual Perspective to Losing a Child". I know that part of the inspiration for her writing this had to come from what happened to me when I lost my little baby Lehna back in March, 2006. Here is a link to Stacy's wonderful article: http://stacylupinacci.blog
I am attaching two different pieces I have written about losing Lehna and the choices I have made since her death; choices that, to many, may not have seemed so wise. How does one give up a job that pays $6000 a week, for example, to take up a career that often times barely makes $600 a month . . . but when you're sad and depressed and in grief/shock/whatever -- well those modes of thinking don't always come in to play; anyway -- here is my own spiritual perspective on the loss of my daughter . . .
Over the past 3 and a half years I have tried to come to some level of peace with the stillbirth of my darling little Lehna. During that time I went from being a fairly lucid, productive member "of society" to a self-destructive suicidal recluse -- too depressed to really function, too clueless to realize what a profound level of depression I was truly in. It took me several years of sitting around in California -- followed by a trip back to Ohio, tail between legs, to admit to something that would have been fairly obvious to most every one else.
First off: Spending $8,000 or $9,000 month after month after month with no real income is not a particularly positive "Rainy Day Fund" approach. I regret now some of my choices but, in looking back at that time, I have to repeat what I first said back then: "a broken heart too soon lead to a broken brain" and one of the reasons I truly care, and, I think, understand, the problems many people face when they call in to my radio show for a "reading" is because I had this direct experience of loss and utter frustration so profoundly after Lehna's passing.
I feel as if NOW I am turning some magical corner towards health and integration. Little by little the light peaks through my window. Certainly, I am no longer fixed on thoughts of Lehna the day she was delivered, her little fingers icy cold, like I was before . . . I want, once again, to engage in life the way I used to -- back before losing my baby, literally, made me crazy.
I was able under even the worst of circumstances to work as a psychic even when I couldn't really work at anything else. I'm not sure why but I do know that is true. I am happy now that I have returned to this crazy metaphysical world. I am thankful for my daughter Riana and my friends and my "work" because work "helps" keep me sane, focused on positive things.
It has been hard for me to find true forgiveness -- of Kaiser Permanente, whose business practices most certainly played a large role in my daughter's passing and also of The Fates who I felt dealt me such a crushing blow.
But much as I have cursed God and the stars my biggest and most brutal curses were directed at myself. All my money and "brainpower" and fancy ass resume could not protect my baby girl. I failed at protecting my child. That is how I felt and that is why I couldn't forgive myself -- why I threw away my career, let me house go adios, destroyed my credit and walked this path all alone.
I needed to shut everything down because I needed time to sort it out. I could have worked but I NEEDED to get the "corporate" out of my blood stream. I needed to be WAY FAR AWAY from that mode of thinking in order to have any chance of knowing who I really was.
I needed, basically, to turn down the noise in my mind so I rejected the "real world" because I felt the "real world" kept me from tuning in to the "True World" -- the voice of God and the sound of my soul, pecking on the insides of my head, trying to get out.
I rejected intimacy, too, because -- truly -- I rejected myself.
If I could have done it a different way I would have. If I could have kept the house and all my "stuff" I most definitely would have. But I couldn't . . . and that, simply enough, is just the truth.
"The pearl of great price is not easily found."
But now I feel as if I have "found" that pearl . . . a power and a level of awareness I could have never really dreamed off. There is a wisdom and a beauty -- and ultimately, too, a reward -- in giving in to the faint whisperings of the soul. I have fallen in to a dark hole but I have been given a magic shovel to dig my way out.
Yeppers, my life has truly been Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. But, to quote my last "real" girlfriend -- I'm "sparkly" hahahahaha . . . I forgive The Fates for taking so much from me and beating me down . . .
I see now what they were trying to do. So I forgive them and in recognizing that The Fates are nothing more than my choices made manifest -- I also forgive myself.
Life is beautiful. That is how I feel. I will never, EVER be "over" losing my child. She is my Angel in Heaven just as Riana is my Angel on Earth . . . but for whatever time is left me I intend to live without cursing the stars . . . I appreciate my "gift".
**************************
A story was published back in February, 2007, on the front page of the LA Times under Dan Costello's byline outlining some of the problems underlying Kaiser Permanente's multi-billion dollar white elephant, Health Connect.
In that story I was quoted as saying that in my fairly extensive career as an IT project manager that I had never seen a project so poorly or ineffectually managed as this one—since I am the person who, literally, wrote the Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron, perhaps this is really saying something. What Dan failed to mention in his story is that the motivation for me to come forward with my concerns stemmed largely from the manner in which my daughter's stillbirth was handled and the completely ridiculous manner in which my daughter's mother had been treated both during and after her pregnancy.
My position as someone tasked with helping design business processes and providing some level of testing oversight for the project could not protect us from the bottom-line approach taken by Kaiser and the economics of death (as I learned AFTER the fact) make for a strange and, in our case, tragic bed fellow.
There is a 30% chance that induction of labor will lead to an emergency c-section and thus (the REAL problem) potentially lead to a greater expense. Fixed cost projects of any kind do not like the sound of a 30% chance of revenue loss.
But, if a woman goes beyond her due date there is an approximate 1 in 300 chance that the child may die. Also keep in mind that Beth (Lehna's mother), no matter how healthy and fit she may be, was a 40 year old woman and potentially a high-risk pregnancy due to her age. These are not particularly good odds for a parent and no parent, if presented with this scenario, would accept these odds but Beth and I are not doctors, we assumed all was well—after all this was a company that paid me a fairly handsome sum to work for them on what I knew to be one of the largest, most expensive software initiatives in history so (from my perspective) this was a cash rich organization and certainly one that would watch over our special needs—and so we were not informed of the risks associated with having the pregnancy continue so far past the due date.
I know for many of you the idea of what Beth (especially Beth) and I went through—and continue to go through each day—must be unimaginable. But, please bear with me as I attempt to share our story in a way in which, perhaps, you may get a better sense of what really happened.
So: First thing–I want you to imagine a scene. I want you to imagine a baby's fat little naked body. I want you to imagine the baby's chubby little cherub body lying on your chest like you saw in that video in the birthing class you and her mother took the month before she died in Mommy's belly.
I want you to imagine the baby now being coaxed out of her grieving morphined mother. I want you to see it, really see it. You can hear the nurses whispering, their small pleasantries and kindnesses too little too late but you are appreciative just the same. Look at the clock. You are constantly watching the clock. Pulling time forward, desperately trying to push it a few days back. You know what's coming. You brace yourself but you have no idea, really, what to expect.
To add to the torment the mother has to be induced. She is not ready, naturally, to deliver her child but the baby is already dead and she has to come out somehow. A caesarean is out—too risky. It is not worth the risk to the mother (and later, when you begin putting two and two together, the EXPENSE for the hospital). The drugs are administered (poorly) the prayers for deliverance and strength offered, the nightmare has just begun. It is 3:00 am Sunday morning.
You hold the mother's hand; you try, somehow, to make the night as peaceful and comfortable for her as you can. The mother is beautiful truly physically beautiful and she is going through something no one should EVER have to experience and you do your part to make the pain she feels now as bearable as you can and you brace yourself for the next wave of pain you know is coming.
When she starts to come out, PUSH PUSH PUSH, her little head peaking out PUSH PUSH PUSH of her mother's vagina, you die. On the spot. Your heart doesn't just break. It stops beating. It no longer beats, it simply allows blood to somehow flow from place to place to place.
The baby, as you know, is already dead, and when she is pulled free her little lifeless body covered in her protective sack, her little dark hairs plastered tight against her cold little head, your mind breaks off a bit and ropes off a little space over in the corner under the boogie man and next to the spiders and bats and creepy old Mrs. Caverly, your ninth grade English teacher, the one who called you a parasite because you didn't read "Great Expectations". The birth of this child and all the terrible pictures and sounds and smells of the night (and, of course, the following day) is something that you can never forget. It is also something that you would never WANT to forget. This day is your only day and it will have to last a long long while.
Her death and the day you spent together is a line in the sand that marks in many quite recognizable ways the end of your own life. The baby's death now becomes your death. Remember what I have said.
The baby's death is your death. You are no longer the same; you can never EVER even pretend to be the same. You might just as well be dead yourself.
Perhaps, maybe, you are.
Remember, too, what it was like the night before after you drove to the hospital and when you found out in the labor and delivery triage room that somehow your baby had died, a baby who had gone full-term through a perfect pregnancy, a baby you had expected two days earlier, when you first came to this same triage room, to hold in your arms and dance and kiss and smooch for a lifetime.
Neither Beth nor I nor our beautiful daughters Elise and Riana will ever be the same again. No settlement no apology no ANYTHING will ever make it right. After Lehna's death I stayed at Kaiser because I believed that my skills as a business analyst would help minimize the chances of this happening to other parents but the project is beyond, I believe, ever really being fixed.
Beth and I had many quite serious disagreements about my continuing role at Kaiser after Lehna's death but I believed, then, that this was the correct approach, no matter how damaging psychologically this may have been to both Beth and me. Also, it allowed me to watch, like a hawk, exactly what was happening within the project over the past year from a fairly unique vantage point.
But when Lehna's fetal heart monitor strip just magically "showed up" one day–WITHOUT a date/time stamp–THEN I changed. It was then, literally THAT DAY, on the spot, as if a bolt of lightning had been attached rather crudely to my behind, that I became ABSOLUTELY determined to (a) leave Kaiser and (b) tell "MY story".
In retrospect I am not so sure I was correct in taking this approach but I was trying, to the best of my ability under the circumstances, to salvage what had been a fairly successful career and I did not want to lose both my child AND the career I had worked so hard for so long to craft and nurture but, ultimately, Lehna's death has most likely ended my career as well. Certainly her death has tarnished the rest of my life in ways that can never be undone.
Lehna Jordann Brewer was finally delivered into the world in Walnut Creek, CA at 3:44 am on Sunday, March 5, 2006 but, officially, this child never existed even though almost every time I touched her Mommy's belly she reached out her little hands to pat me; how can anyone ever REALLY get over this?
Lehna Jordann Brewer, according to the laws of California, was never born, she never died she is, legally, nothing but she is something to us and perhaps one day her life and death may serve a higher purpose. She was and is a BEAUTIFUL BABY: our little muffinizer rascalian girl.
The idea that a stillborn child is a non-event seems logically antithetical to the concept that a "child" can be murdered in the womb. This interpretation has, to me anyway, always been problematic.
Lehna was absolutely our child. We all miss her and her death really ruined our lives in so many ways. I changed her diaper and she spit up on my shirt. How she had a poopy diaper and COULD spit up on my shirt I don't know but I have the diaper and shirt to prove it.
We have locks of her hair. More importantly in a little box wrapped in a blankie we have what is left of Lehna, a pile of ash, with no kisses or toys or happy memories, nothing but a little cardboard box.
The more time passes the more I blame Kaiser for the way in which they handled the situation and the manner in which they treated Beth. As time passes, my ideas conform more to Beth's interpretation of what happened no matter how far apart they may have been six to eight months ago.
It was the manner in which Kaiser handled–or should I say "mis-handled"–Beth's medical records that led me to change my opinion and that change has caused me an incredible amount of grief and made it difficult for me to return to the corporate "world" again.
I am attaching part of an email I wrote as the cover to a "Lessons Learned" document I submitted to Kaiser leadership last November–this is before finding out that our daughter's medical records magically re-appeared (without a name, date, or MRN number at which point I stopped really trying to help Kaiser and "gave up" any hopes of things ever working out).
Anyway, for a small taste of what my opinion of Kaiser's methodological weaknesses may be I am attaching part of the cover letter to my Lessons Learned doc, dated 11/10/2006:
{The two most common reasons for a software implementation to have "issues" are 1) data integration requirements for all existing legacy systems are problematic and systems don't "talk" to one another or 2) late in the game additional requirements and/or wishes are introduced, often times leading to a condensed time line for the creation and testing of those changes. Both will potentially impact the stability of a given system.
From an organizational change perspective, the two most common deterrents to effective change management are 1) lack of effective, overt executive sponsorship and 2) conflicting messages either in type or decree. All of these issues are evident in KPHC in some degree or another.
I still believe the major problem here is communication and the major communication problem is a lack of some measure of centralization and control of the release of information.
I disagree in principle with the manner in which we are conducting our testing; I am not referring to our team but rather the totality of entities involved in requesting, testing, and promoting code into a production environment. I realize this is not news that I disagree and I will continue to raise this as a concern as long as I believe it continues to be problematic. My analysis is attached . . .}
There are a multitude of problems within Kaiser and certainly a multitude of "potentially" serious problems (in my opinion—realize, though, that this is only my opinion).
I believe, within the context of "Best Practice" methodologies—and a Kaiser manager once told me, to my face, "F*@K your methodology" (only the impending birth of my daughter stopped me from leaving and raising a stink at the time; yes "Kaiser cares")—a VERY strong case can be made that Health Connect poses a potential risk to all Kaiser members and I believe a strong case can and perhaps should be made that some level of governmental oversight should be applied towards addressing potential risks within Health Connect.
In a nutshell, all the ways in which a software implementation could go wrong I believe went wrong (WAY wrong) with Health Connect.
But "projects" mean little when life and death is at stake and so, to cap off my narrative, I am including the email I wrote the morning after Lehna's death, informing my co-workers that I would not be coming in to work that morning. Here is the text, as I wrote it, on March 6, 2006:
{Our beautiful baby daughter, Lehna Jordann, died in utero this past weekend. Beth was induced and she gave birth to Lehna, stillborn, Sunday morning at 3:44 am. I am telling you this not to make you feel sad, because I know many of you will feel sad both for the situation and for me, but to let you know how my experience is likely to impact my short-term commitments to Kaiser.
I also know that many of you know me and have heard me as the silly joyous hopeful 51 year-old expectant father-to-be go on and on about Lehna and my hopes and dreams relative to the child and, as a result, I realize this also adds to your sadness for this situation and I truly feel your pain as you try to feel mine. Some of you have had experiences like mine, perhaps not exactly, but you know the sense of loss personally and deeply, too.
On Thursday morning, I went with Beth to the doctor for a stress test and ultrasound. The doctors told me to basically hang out, everything looked good and the possibility of the baby saying hello before the end of the day was very strong. On Thursday night, Beth thought she was in labor so we drove to Walnut Creek and went to the triage room in Labor and Delivery. We were there for a few hours. The monitors showed the baby's heart beating away but we were told that it was not time and sent home. Beth was past her due date and if Lehna didn't come on her own we were scheduled for next Wednesday, 3/8, to have Beth induced.
On Saturday Beth said she felt as if the baby wasn't moving. We assumed this was the "calm before the storm" and the baby was getting her sleep so she wouldn't be tired when her parents kept waking her up to kiss her and try on different outfits. I assumed everything was fine but we went to Walnut Creek Saturday night just to make sure and that is when we learned that Lehna had already died. The next 24 hours were crazy--Beth was admitted and induced to have labor, she had Lehna at 3:44 am and then we stayed with Lehna and looked at her and held her and loved her and tried so so hard to capture something of her to remember.
All parents think their children are beautiful and will go to Harvard and win Wimbledon and become King of Norway but please believe me when I tell you all that this child was truly beautiful. She was 7 lb 13 oz and 20 3/4 inches tall and she was even prettier than I could have imagined her--and I imagined her as being pretty special. Lehna's physical appearance only adds to our bewilderment as to how such a beautiful well-formed baby could suddenly just die.
The irony is not lost on me that my professional role as someone with some level of responsibility for planning and developing testing methodologies for a hospital should see their child die in that same hospital when all the diagnostic tools failed to uncover any problem and the doctors have no ideas as to what caused her death.
Also, I want to thank you for the lovely baby shower you gave to me last week. I apologize for not responding earlier but so much was going on Wednesday and Thursday and I talked with Gilda and I planned today to send a formal thank you which I will do later; I promise. Beth and I appreciate so much your kindness and I slept last night with one of the little blankies you gave us for Lehna and I know that she would have loved everything, too.
I can't figure out why this happened. I try and make sense of it but it is beyond me to understand. By nature I am driven so much by emotion. My professional life, though, is driven by my ability to analyze, understand, and detach. This means this, this and that lead to a probability of this, methodological dictates say this should be so and this shouldn't.
As such these modes of being and thinking are like two different engines on the same train. The analyst is a skill, pure and simple, one I can literally turn on and off light a faucet. The other half, the artistic emotional half, is not so easy, though, to turn on and off. It is because of this duality of nature that I feel that, for now, I need to stay away in order for the feeling me to have its time. I can go hard core methodology RFA Project planning etc in bursts but right now I cannot sustain that.
Give me a few days and I will be back, perhaps remotely for day or two but I will be back.
This leads to another issue which is how will you all respond to me when I do come back. I don't want you to feel as if you have to wear black in my presence and avert your eyes and shuffle away in fear my personal sorrow is contagious. It is not. When I come back I hope you will treat me just as you did before and I am hopeful, too, that I will be professional enough to keep everything in order so as not to negatively impact you or your ability to get the things done you need to. I will not be a bottleneck for testing but I will be our of pocket for today.
Thank you all for your friendship. Some of you have been friends of mine for many years and others of you I have know only a short while but still you have all been so good to me throughout my time at Kaiser. If I have left anyone off this please let them know and forgive me, too, for not personally writing to you.
Thank you for reading this for me and I will see you all very soon.
Andy
Books, Tarot Decks, Readings, "Stuff"
I had a lovely week, my birthday was Saturday -- went to see Otis Link's show at the Copro Gallery in Santa Monica -- awesome -- plus listen to some totally rockn music, "The Billybones".
Sunday was "Hollywood Rocks for Haiti"; I did about 10 readings all for charity, heard some great music, met some incredible people and got on youtube, too !!
Monday the fun continued. My good pal Scott Grossberg took me to The Magic Castle, fed me filet and shrimp and we saw magic shows and talked. Scott is one of the people in this life I admire most. A truly good guy, with a big heart and super smart -- and SUPER intuitive, as well. I think of myself as being sort of unique, one of a kind. But the same can be said, of course, about Scott, too. Scott is different, special . . . truly special.
I talked with Scott Monday night about my ideas for an oracle deck specifically for "past lives". I had developed several Tarot "spreads" for past lives -- some of them that, literally, came to me in a dream -- and wanted a deck that had a very specific look and feel to it, something that replicated, as closely as possible, the mind set in which I immerse myself in order to read "past lives".
I developed that deck this week. I am still doing some of the final tweaks but I feel as if it is 99 % finished and, truthfully, this deck ROCKS !! I love it.
Sometimes I get in the creative frenzy and so I created a traditional 78 card Tarot Deck this week, too, called "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows" -- not to be confused with Scott's beautiful oracle deck, "The Deck of Shadows" . . . For more about Scott and his deck please check out www.thinkingmagically.com.
Now that I have these new decks -- as well as my books -- some people have asked me "OK, now what?" This note is a heads-up as to my plans for my body of work as well as how you can (if you feel so inclined) purchase any / or all of my books and decks -- plus get a reading and maybe two more for your friends :) !!
First off -- my books. I have 3 books now: (a) "The Metaphoric Mirror", (b) "Hymn to the Manichean", and (c) "Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy". Books "B" and "C" are compilations; "Hymn to the Manichean" is a collection of poetry and "Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy" is a compendium of political writings that I have published before -- mainly my (largely ignored) cries in the wilderness about the upcoming "economic meltdown" I saw for the United States. I used terms like "housing crisis" and "bailout" -- and yes that is the word I used -- back before they became such a painful part of our daily lives.
Anyway, both these books are works I am proud of but they are probably not so interesting to the general reader and, as such, I am leaving them as e-books for donations. At some point I may turn them in to print editions but, for now, I am content to leave them in a pdf "donation only" format.
However, "The Metaphoric Mirror" is different. The Galley proofs should hopefully be coming in the next week or two and once those are signed off on then the "print" edition is good to go. I have been offering a signed and numbered edition for $25.00 through my website. There are only going to be 50 of these and there are still plenty left.
The actual price will be $17.99 so if you would prefer a copy that is not numbered -- it will still be autographed if purchased through my website -- but would like the print edition, please go the "Fees" tab to order your copy. Shipping and handling will be added to each order.
Books should be ready to ship within 3-4 weeks from today. For now, I am asking people to order the book through me; it will be available on amazon.com sometime later in the Spring.
Now the Decks; it was my intention always to create individually crafted decks that were pieces of art as much as working decks. However, the price for such a deck would probably be more than I care to ask -- yet I don't feel as if I want to mass-produce these either. If someone like U.S. Games would come knocking on my door then of course I would likely change my tune.
But I am not intentionally going down that path. In fact, my "vision" of the past life deck "Khar - Ma" is significantly different. "Khar - Ma" has 63 different cards, all with both a picture and a title. Each card is also individually numbered. Sixty-three is an interesting choice mathematically -- 3 x 21 or 7 x 9.
But this deck is designed to have a secondary hidden wrinkle, card # 64. Like the Fool card in a traditional Tarot Deck, this card is numbered both 0 and 64. It is a "wild card" and my plan, as long as I do a limited run, is to "choose" a card and label specifically for the individual purchasing the deck.
In other words, each deck will have a card chosen by me as being thematically significant relative to the purchaser's past lives as well as being an integral part of the deck in doing readings for oneself or others.
And Card 64 also adds another mathematical wrinkle to the deck. It is now 8 x 8 but, more importantly, it also matches the 64 squares on a chess board. To me, this linkage to Chess -- and the metaphors of the Game -- are vitally important to the mathematical magic implicit in this deck.
Because this deck IS magical. I am tentatively thinking of doing 63 decks at a price of $63.00 per deck. Each deck would also have a frontispiece card as well as a personally autographed end card, 66 cards total.
I want this deck to go to those who would love and appreciate it -- and this, to me, is not a joke. This is a creative part of my soul and I have a special fondness for this, as well as a very healthy respect for the power of the cards and my system of reading them. I am proposing this as a "revealed wisdom" deck -- one in which I plan to offer a class for owners leading towards a certification in its use.
Because, truthfully, the deck and the means in which it opens up its mysteries to the reader is powerful. I think it will truly help talented intuitive readers with a penchant for past life intuition and a love for the Tarot.
"The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows", honestly, I created for me. It is stamped with my sense of humor, my style of thinking and honestly a bit of my own historical karma. I may also do the deck as a limited run, like the "Khar - Ma" deck, but I am still investigating my options and trying to get some feedback as to how people feel about the deck.
But, for me, personally, this is the deck I plan to use going forward. There are times when a traditional Tarot deck, with both the Major and Minor Arcana, is the proper "choice". Since I have created these lovely decks I will likely do two things more and more going forward: (1) do more radio shows about Tarot and (2) switch the bulk of my personal readings or clients from astrology / clairvoyance readings to readings using one or both of my decks. As such, the price of individual readings will likely go down.
Finally, although I am still in Los Angeles, I am feeling more and more the need to go SOMEWHERE. Does that mean San Francisco or someplace else -- or across the street here :) -- who knows but I am feeling the need again for movement.
I enjoy the gypsy thing, seeing new places, meeting new people. So we'll see.
But -- to sum up (sorta). "The Metaphoric Mirror" is available for pre-sale on my website. It should be in your hands in about 3 weeks or so. Both decks are finished and an announcement as to their release and price will be forthcoming in the next 7 - 10 days.
IHappy thoughts to all.
Sunday was "Hollywood Rocks for Haiti"; I did about 10 readings all for charity, heard some great music, met some incredible people and got on youtube, too !!
Monday the fun continued. My good pal Scott Grossberg took me to The Magic Castle, fed me filet and shrimp and we saw magic shows and talked. Scott is one of the people in this life I admire most. A truly good guy, with a big heart and super smart -- and SUPER intuitive, as well. I think of myself as being sort of unique, one of a kind. But the same can be said, of course, about Scott, too. Scott is different, special . . . truly special.
I talked with Scott Monday night about my ideas for an oracle deck specifically for "past lives". I had developed several Tarot "spreads" for past lives -- some of them that, literally, came to me in a dream -- and wanted a deck that had a very specific look and feel to it, something that replicated, as closely as possible, the mind set in which I immerse myself in order to read "past lives".
I developed that deck this week. I am still doing some of the final tweaks but I feel as if it is 99 % finished and, truthfully, this deck ROCKS !! I love it.
Sometimes I get in the creative frenzy and so I created a traditional 78 card Tarot Deck this week, too, called "The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows" -- not to be confused with Scott's beautiful oracle deck, "The Deck of Shadows" . . . For more about Scott and his deck please check out www.thinkingmagically.com.
Now that I have these new decks -- as well as my books -- some people have asked me "OK, now what?" This note is a heads-up as to my plans for my body of work as well as how you can (if you feel so inclined) purchase any / or all of my books and decks -- plus get a reading and maybe two more for your friends :) !!
First off -- my books. I have 3 books now: (a) "The Metaphoric Mirror", (b) "Hymn to the Manichean", and (c) "Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy". Books "B" and "C" are compilations; "Hymn to the Manichean" is a collection of poetry and "Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy" is a compendium of political writings that I have published before -- mainly my (largely ignored) cries in the wilderness about the upcoming "economic meltdown" I saw for the United States. I used terms like "housing crisis" and "bailout" -- and yes that is the word I used -- back before they became such a painful part of our daily lives.
Anyway, both these books are works I am proud of but they are probably not so interesting to the general reader and, as such, I am leaving them as e-books for donations. At some point I may turn them in to print editions but, for now, I am content to leave them in a pdf "donation only" format.
However, "The Metaphoric Mirror" is different. The Galley proofs should hopefully be coming in the next week or two and once those are signed off on then the "print" edition is good to go. I have been offering a signed and numbered edition for $25.00 through my website. There are only going to be 50 of these and there are still plenty left.
The actual price will be $17.99 so if you would prefer a copy that is not numbered -- it will still be autographed if purchased through my website -- but would like the print edition, please go the "Fees" tab to order your copy. Shipping and handling will be added to each order.
Books should be ready to ship within 3-4 weeks from today. For now, I am asking people to order the book through me; it will be available on amazon.com sometime later in the Spring.
Now the Decks; it was my intention always to create individually crafted decks that were pieces of art as much as working decks. However, the price for such a deck would probably be more than I care to ask -- yet I don't feel as if I want to mass-produce these either. If someone like U.S. Games would come knocking on my door then of course I would likely change my tune.
But I am not intentionally going down that path. In fact, my "vision" of the past life deck "Khar - Ma" is significantly different. "Khar - Ma" has 63 different cards, all with both a picture and a title. Each card is also individually numbered. Sixty-three is an interesting choice mathematically -- 3 x 21 or 7 x 9.
But this deck is designed to have a secondary hidden wrinkle, card # 64. Like the Fool card in a traditional Tarot Deck, this card is numbered both 0 and 64. It is a "wild card" and my plan, as long as I do a limited run, is to "choose" a card and label specifically for the individual purchasing the deck.
In other words, each deck will have a card chosen by me as being thematically significant relative to the purchaser's past lives as well as being an integral part of the deck in doing readings for oneself or others.
And Card 64 also adds another mathematical wrinkle to the deck. It is now 8 x 8 but, more importantly, it also matches the 64 squares on a chess board. To me, this linkage to Chess -- and the metaphors of the Game -- are vitally important to the mathematical magic implicit in this deck.
Because this deck IS magical. I am tentatively thinking of doing 63 decks at a price of $63.00 per deck. Each deck would also have a frontispiece card as well as a personally autographed end card, 66 cards total.
I want this deck to go to those who would love and appreciate it -- and this, to me, is not a joke. This is a creative part of my soul and I have a special fondness for this, as well as a very healthy respect for the power of the cards and my system of reading them. I am proposing this as a "revealed wisdom" deck -- one in which I plan to offer a class for owners leading towards a certification in its use.
Because, truthfully, the deck and the means in which it opens up its mysteries to the reader is powerful. I think it will truly help talented intuitive readers with a penchant for past life intuition and a love for the Tarot.
"The Tarot of Hungarian Shadows", honestly, I created for me. It is stamped with my sense of humor, my style of thinking and honestly a bit of my own historical karma. I may also do the deck as a limited run, like the "Khar - Ma" deck, but I am still investigating my options and trying to get some feedback as to how people feel about the deck.
But, for me, personally, this is the deck I plan to use going forward. There are times when a traditional Tarot deck, with both the Major and Minor Arcana, is the proper "choice". Since I have created these lovely decks I will likely do two things more and more going forward: (1) do more radio shows about Tarot and (2) switch the bulk of my personal readings or clients from astrology / clairvoyance readings to readings using one or both of my decks. As such, the price of individual readings will likely go down.
Finally, although I am still in Los Angeles, I am feeling more and more the need to go SOMEWHERE. Does that mean San Francisco or someplace else -- or across the street here :) -- who knows but I am feeling the need again for movement.
I enjoy the gypsy thing, seeing new places, meeting new people. So we'll see.
But -- to sum up (sorta). "The Metaphoric Mirror" is available for pre-sale on my website. It should be in your hands in about 3 weeks or so. Both decks are finished and an announcement as to their release and price will be forthcoming in the next 7 - 10 days.
IHappy thoughts to all.
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