mystical

Wow you guys!
Sunday’s post regarding the word DEVOTION  and all that it means really got our  blog family thinking…and talking!

Lots of great feedback in the comments, several emails and a couple of you were even compelled to text!

Many of us it seems, responded to a kind of Catholic Cosmic Memo, feeling a slight nudge, or in my case an insistent calling to Go Sit In Church.

More than that, it became a full circle moment, ripe with emotion, healing and even some tears – Who knew?                  

To get the memo, listen to it, share it with you guys and then get to hear about all the synchronicities, you guys, that’s why I do this!   

I went to bed Sunday night grateful and giddy, really happy that a bunch of us had shared that experience.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read that yet another soul had received the memo, and it was someone whom I really admire.

It seems that we can count the author, lecturer and life coach extraordinaire Cheryl Richardson, among our ranks. Her experience was very close to mine, which affirms the fact that we’re all connected, (but I have to admit, it still freaks me out a little when that happens).

So who else was with us? Although I’ve called it the Catholic Cosmic Memo, that’s only  because I’ve heard mostly from them (confession).

You Guys, it doesn’t have to be a church. Did you make a long overdue visit to a Temple for Passover, or visit a Mosque?

I’m so curious now about who else received this Cosmic Memo!
Please share.

God sure does work in mysterious ways!
Carry on
xoxJ

Take it away Cheryl:

~*~ How God works in mysterious ways

This morning I went to church for the first time in years.
I’d been thinking about going to celebrate Easter and a last-minute invitation from a friend who wanted company sealed the deal.
Raised Catholic, I spent every Sunday morning at church with my family. We’d file in, one-by-one, all nine of us, and sit in a pew near the front of the altar so we could watch the priest as he said Mass.

Today, staring at the coffered ceilings, the stained glass windows, and the mighty arches overhead, I was transported back in time.
My body knew the rituals by heart. Stand. Sit. Kneel. Stand.
My mouth remembered every word.
My spirit lifted as I listened to the thundering organ and felt the sacredness of ceremony.

When we sat down for the sermon, I stared at a young girl – maybe ten years old – sitting in a pew in front of me. She had long, dark hair and she wore a pale, pink dress with a matching ribbon tied in a bow around her ponytail.

Wiggling back and forth, doing her best to sit still, I smiled as I remembered my own restlessness as a kid in church constrained by the fear of getting ‘the look’ from one of my parents.
Watching her, I felt emotion well up inside me, bringing unexpected tears to my eyes. I lowered my head and squeezed them shut, unsure about what prompted this reaction.

I took a slow, deep breath and tuned in.

This is where my spiritual life was born, I thought to myself, the place that introduced me to the love of God and the belief in a power greater than my small self.

These are the rituals that formed the spiritual backbone that, to this day, supports my life, my work, and my soul.
This may be where my love affair with beauty began.
I felt overwhelmed with appreciation for my mom and dad’s commitment to instill in us a reverence for the sacred in spite of our resistance.

I’m sure we complained a lot about going to church.
It’s funny how things change with the wisdom and maturity of age.
Over the years, as my spiritual life widened and expanded to include the rituals and teachings of other faiths, I lost touch with my Catholic roots.

Today, it felt good to revisit them again.

At the end of the Mass, something beautiful happened.
As I walked out of the church, the priest who led the service smiled as I passed by and, when my friend stopped to introduce us, he threw his arms around me before she barely said a word. He hugged me tight and began to recite a blessing, asking God to fill me with love, to protect me, and to give me what I needed to continue making my way in the world.

I stood there, returning his embrace, a little stunned at his warmth and informality.

When finished, he stepped back and looked me in the eye. Then he started laughing.

“You get it, right?” he said to me.

I started laughing, too.

Yes, I get it, I replied, without a second thought.
My head unsure, but my heart and soul fully onboard.

God sure does work in mysterious ways.
Happy Easter to you and yours… may we all be raised by the Light.
heart emoticon Cheryl

You can subscribe to Cheryl’s blog here:
http://cherylrichardson.com/

When you’re grieving a loss it is impossible to escape the memories. No place is safe.

Every room, chair, blanket, toy, vomit stain, neighborhood walk, and piece of grass is a minefield of emotions.
That applies to the loss of a dog.

For a human being you can just multiply that by a quadrillion.

Since daylight savings time had the bad taste to pick last weekend, the weekend of her death to bestow upon us its gift of an additional hour of daylight, I had the poor judgement to sit out in the backyard and write.
My bad.

It was one of her favorite places.
It is dog Disneyland, containing all the essentials required for canine happiness.
Grass, toys, balls and frisbees, and the arms with which to throw them (ours), so our OCD dog could wrangle you into a game of catch no matter what other plans you had made for yourself.

Nap? Nope – Catch.

Settle in and read a book? Nope – Catch.

Bar-B-Q, talk with a friend, write a book? Nope, nope and double nope. But good try.

Time for a relentless five-hour game of catch!
You get the picture.

The boxer-shark puppy, Ruby, did not inherit the ball, frisbee, play catch gene.

She inherited a whole myriad of other traits that are even more annoying, like digging up lawns and eating expensive furniture, but that particular “play catch/fetch” gene? It skipped her entirely.

If you throw a ball her way it will hit her in the head and then she’ll watch it as it rolls right past her. Believe me, I just tried to play fetch with her on Sunday.

But that was then –– this was Monday evening.

We were sitting in back, remembering the old girl and crying.
Okay maybe not we, me, I was. My husband I’m sure was thinking: please for the love of God woman, give it a rest.

But grief didn’t care. I was grief’s bitch. Grief was the boss of me.

Anyway…after a half an hour of hearing me carry on, waxing poetic about how Dita would be playing ball right now, Dita would be next to me with the Frisbee,something had to give. With an exasperated sigh the puppy got up off the ottoman, stretched, sauntered over and picked up a tennis ball in her mouth, brought it over to me and dropped it at my feet.

Then she looked up at me with her big soulful eyes, so full of compassion that said: Shut the fuck up already, Here! Throw the God damn ball!

I half-heartedly picked it up and gave it a sideways toss onto the grass, never for one minute expecting what happened next. Instead of watching it whizz by her head like she usually did, the puppy bolted out to the lawn, stopped its momentum, picked it up in her mouth and ran it back to me… Just like Dita.

I jumped to my feet,“Did you see that?” I yelled, wiping the tears from my eyes to clear my vision. Had I imagined it?

My husband straightened in his chair. “Do it again” he said.
And I did; over and over for almost a half an hour. She fetched every ball, just like Dita. As a matter of fact EXACTLY like Dita. Same energy level, same ferocity, she even made the same little growl when she picked it up off the grass.

“If I bounce this ball and she spikes it with her nose, I’m gonna lose my mind” I announced very enthusiastically to my bewildered husband. “Because then I’ll know. That dog isn’t Ruby, that is Dita in that puppy body, playing catch with me so I’ll stop being so sad.”

And on the next bounce she did. She spiked the ball off her nose and caught it in mid-air. Just. Like. Dita.

“If I hadn’t just seen that with my own eyes…” my husband said, shaking his head, eyes welling up with tears.

Here’s the thing:

Our animals, family members, and all the people we hold so dear would never want us to suffer over their loss, that I know for sure, so I think they give us the gift of their presence, even just for a minute, to lessen our grief, and let us know they are near.

I’ve heard and read numerous stories about occurrences that cannot be chalked up to coincidence.

Favorite perfume in the air, music they loved on radio, seeing their name everywhere, even an athletically challenged, previously uninterested puppy playing an all-star game of fetch.

All that just to let us know that they’re fine, they are with us and for God sakes stop crying!

Addendum: That incident helped me to really feel her near me, which then in turn gave me comfort –– she didn’t feel so far away. I feel so much better AND I tossed a ball Ruby’s way this morning…it hit her in the leg and rolled unnoticed into the bushes…just sayin’

Carry on,
Xox

My husband left yesterday for France, for a refined yet testosterone filled few days of car auctions, car parties, followed by a car show.
Can you say Gear Head?

Last night, after delivering the dead weight of both sleeping dogs to their beds, I looked up and was reminded of a mystical motorcycle message that was delivered to me on another night when he was far, far away.

It was a different kind of trip, raw and rugged.
He was pretty much incommunicado, racing in a desert over ten thousand miles away, but things had taken a turn and I sensed he was in danger.

So I asked for a sign, and the Universe, with her wicked sense of humor, delivered a doozy.

It was the second year he had decided to ride with his buddies at Rawhyde, down in South America to follow this crazy-ass off-road, Mad Max style race called the Dakar.

The year before they had the time of their lives, riding in that environment, among all the other idiots, I mean racers, and being worshipped by the locals, who line the route and gather in great numbers at every gas stop, handing them food, babies and cameras to capture the moment.
They are revered, like rock stars.

The riding is treacherously fabulous.
The dirt roads through the Atacama Desert are rocky and rutted and they’re racing next to Rally cars, other motorcycles, and behemoth Russian supply trucks that decided a few years back that they too wanted a piece of the action.
It’s consistently well over one hundred degrees, and they have to cross the Andes via Paseo De San Francisco, which at over 10,000 feet requires them to do what the locals do to offset the altitude – chew raw coca leaves.
While they ride a motorcycle. Yes, you read that right.

It’s an insane cluster fuck, an accident waiting to happen. People die.

But as he’s told me, it’s the most fun he’s ever had with his clothes on.

Here’s a taste in case you’re interested:
http://youtu.be/UYFt7hrMWOg

This trip Murphy’s Law prevailed.
Everything that could go wrong did – and then some. I heard about it in my one text per day. It was often terse and exhausted sounding, sent at the end of another grueling episode of Chasing Dakar.
Let’s just say, things were not flowing, and he was not a happy camper. I felt terrible for him.

The day came to cross over the Andes and because of circumstances too complicated to get into, he and an instructor were leading the group up and over.

The idea is to do it as quickly as you can, spending as little time as possible up at that elevation. Get your paperwork stamped at the checkpoint and GO!
The previous year he’d told me stories of helping other riders back down the mountain, who were literally found laying in the road next to their bikes, sick and seriously delusional from the altitude.
Apparently they’d never received the coca leaf memo.

Knowing all that only made things worse for me when I didn’t hear from him at all that day. Nothing.
The window of time in which I’d usually receive my text had come – and gone. Man, how I would have welcomed one of his cantankerous texts.
I started to worry.

With the phone tucked under my pillow, I laid there – waiting. Once I realized it was asinine to try to sleep, I decided to text him.
Hope you made it safely. I Love you.
I knew he wouldn’t answer, But it made me feel better…for about a minute.

It’s amazing where your mind can go when you’re sick with worry about someone you love.
Mine writes horror movies that could never be shown because of the graphic nature of the gore. They involve motorcycles and danger, blood, guts, and death.
That night I had him lost in the Andes, with no food or water, crazy from the altitude, eyeing a fellow victim like a pork chop. Or dead, his body carried away by the Andes version of a Yeti, never to be found.

I felt completely powerless, and I was making myself sick.

By 3 a.m. I decided to pray. I prayed the tight-fisted prayer of the terrified wife.

Please let him be okay. I even forgive the fact he hasn’t checked in. Please let him be alive. Please give me a sign.

I took a Xanax and finally drifted into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares. In one, the bedroom was filled with an eerie, greenish light. I could see it through my closed eyelids.
No, really.
My eyes snapped open and the room was filled with an eerie green light I’d never seen before. I blinked, then blinked again.

WTF? Slowly I got up to see where the light was coming from, half expecting a ghostly visitation from my dearly departed in the arms of a Yeti. What I found was almost as weird.

We have a 1953 Peugeot motorcycle up on the short wall that separates our bathroom from our bedroom. Yes, you can say it. All his friends do. I’m the coolest wife EVER!
Anyway…
You’re required by law, to have a fluorescent light in a bathroom. I’ve always hated the greenish glare those bulbs give off, so we installed it behind the motorcycle to assuage the inspector – and then had it promptly disconnected.
If you flip the switch, nothing happens.

But not on this night. I came out of my worry coma to find that the motorcycle above my head was impossibly illuminated. By a light that should NOT be working.

I stood there frozen, a shiver ran around the room, looking for a spine to run up, then it found mine.

It was my sign. It had to be. Light…Motorcycle…

Now just to be clear, he’s okay, right? This means he’s alive, not dead.

The exasperated Universe told me to cut the chit-chat and go back to bed. I flipped the switch which was already in the off position, not knowing what to expect, and the light went out.

Later that day, I received a text. It was short, crabby and filled with expletives.  It was the best text of my life
They had become stuck at the top for hours, and things had gone downhill from there (pun intended). But at last they were back at sea level; sleepless, starving, but safe and sound and back in the race.
It ended with Love you, and that’s all that I could see. I burst into large, crocodile tears of relief.

PS. That light has never worked since.

Keep Calm & Carry on,
Xox

Hello my Peeps!
Just wanted to share a quick message. Yep. I got a message from the Universe yesterday.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, because I love this stuff, and I’m excited.

This shit NEVER gets old! I’m telling’ ya!

So as you’ve read, I’ve been a bit blue lately, and I’ve just kinda been following it.
Yesterday, at the car wash I had an Ah Ha moment. You know, just like you do at a car wash.
Complete clarity (and a clean windshield).
It hit me like a bolt of lightning!
I knew what it was! Some old, childhood, feelings had been triggered. I could even identify them.

Security and stability, or lack thereof, and feeling dis-empowered as an eleven year old girl.

Then I had the realization that those feeling were like a program running in the background of my life, and just like what happens with your computer, it was slowing things (energy) down.

Eureka!

Now I’m going to be uncharacteristically non-specific with the rest of the details – for now.
But I know I’m on the right track. You wanna know how I know?

Later in the day I spotted an unopened 2014 calendar of inspirational sayings that was laying on my office desk. It had been hiding its inspiration under a stack of papers and old files. I grabbed the now useless box to throw it away, and then decided to have one last crack at it before it became garbage.

I opened it up, asked it what I needed to know, running my thumb rapidly through the entire year.
When it randomly stopped, I pulled out the page to take a look. What wisdom did 2014 have for me?

“Are you kidding me?!”

Well, that’s a picture of the page above. I’m covered with goosebumps again, just like I was at that moment.

As many times as this has happened to me – it NEVER gets old!

There are signs EVERYWHERE, letting you know if you’re on the right track.
Sometimes all ya gotta do is ask.

Love you guys, Have a great weekend!
Carry on,
xox

Half of me was wondering: Am I awake? But the other half KNEW it was a dream.

It was vivid and lucid. I could smell the dankness that hung in the air.
I could feel the powered sugar softness of the dirt under my bare feet.
I had entered a cave of some kind.

My hands ran along the cool, damp, uneven walls as I slowly made my way, back, back, back inside, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

There he stood, at the end of this narrow, winding,descent; a very tall figure in a black hooded robe.

I stopped. And stared. ‘I hope this is a dream, or I’m screwed.’

He put out his hands in a friendly way, beckoning me forward.
I walked toward him slowly.
“Show me your face” I said.
“In time” I heard back.

He started talking to me, telling me this and that about my life at the time. I just stood there, listening intently.

I was 26 years old, freshly divorced and in a new, rambunctious, highly sexualized relationship with a twenty year old boy/man who had saved me from having to think seriously about my future; and then after a summer of love, had left for college.
Deep down I knew what that meant, I was almost twenty seven after all, but I wore denial like an ivory cashmere shawl. It was cozy, and it made me happy.

“This relationship you’re in, is going to end.” he said after lulling me into complacency.
“Nooooooooo” I whined, not wanting to face the truth.
“That is not the direction your life must go. He is not your destiny.”
My heart literally hurt in my chest. “But we’re so happy.”
I swear he said, “Not for long.”

Asshole.

I put my head in my hands and started to cry.
There was so much misplaced sadness there inside me, so many tears I hadn’t given myself the time to cry. I had run away from a seven year marriage without missing a step. I hadn’t looked back, I’d only felt a combination of freedom and elation. I had never shed one tear.
Yet, having to leave the arms of this young lover, who felt so misguidedly right, hurt like hell, and I sobbed like a blubbering, sex crazed idiot.
Tall hooded guy stepped forward and enveloped me in a full body embrace. I barely came up to his neck.

When he did that, it unleashed a torrent of sights and sounds that my brain was having a hard time keeping up with.
I suddenly had ALL KNOWLEDGE. 
Past, present, future.
My life. ALL life.
Earth, our galaxy, the Universe and beyond.
I knew the answer to every question that had ever been asked…and some that hadn’t been asked…yet.
It was all so simple. ‘Why did we make things so difficult?’ I remember thinking in a blurrrrrrr.
I knew the cure for cancer, the end of hunger and I saw lasting peace.
War seemed barbaric, as a matter of fact, so did humanity.
The twentieth century felt like the movie Braveheart, inside those arms.

He was right, I had strayed off destiny’s path. This dalliance had to end, and I had to start going inside to look for love.

It was over in a second. He dropped his arms and the rush subsided.
I came back to my present. To the cave, with this man.
I had no words.
He turned and started to walk away, his work here was done.

He’d broken my heart and then sent me on an amazing journey to explain why he’d come.
“Turn around, show me your face!” I yelled. I was smad (combination of sad and mad)
He was far away, I could barely hear him now, “In time” he said, never turning around.

I woke up to a bright, hot summer morning in my shitty apartment, feeling such gratitude. The phone next to me was ringing.
“Thank God, that was just a dream.” I chanted over and over in my head, still processing my “know everything” moment, as I rolled over to pick up the receiver.
“Hey” my beloved’s sleepy voice said on the other end, “we have to talk.”

My heart sank as tears immediately filled my eyes. They’d been waiting there for a long time.

I knew what was coming next. No more fucking around. 
Somtimetimes, before a big life shakeup, the Universe gives you a head’s up, This was mine.
It was time to start living my destiny.

Xox

* I haven’t told many people this story for obvious reasons. Let’s just keep it between you and me.;-)

Perhaps the shortest and most powerful prayer in the human language is help.
~Father Thomas Keating

Men show up at the foot of my bed. I can’t help it, it’s a gift.

No, really.
Once, when I was living with my sister and a roommate, a “drunk as a skunk” friend of my roommate’s boyfriend got lost on his way to the bathroom, and I woke up to find him at the foot of my bed, mumbling incoherently – with no pants on.
If I’d had a gun, he’d be dead. And THAT is the end of my anti gun story.

The second time it happened was even weirder, if you can believe it.
It was during the time of my spiritual awakening, so I was living alone on the ninth floor of a high-rise, crazy, mystical shit was happening, and I felt like hell.
I had my pocket shaman, his team, and pennies in my shoes to keep me grounded.
I wasn’t sleeping much, but when I’d laid down to try, I would beg God or whoever was on duty that late at night, for peace of mind.
My prayer was always: Dear God, please help me to handle this.
Someone told me that prayer was magic, so I would whisper it softly, every night, and wait for relief.

One particularly bad night, after I finally managed to nod off, I was startled awake by some commotion at my window.
I actually had a whole wall of windows, which looked out over the Hollywood Hills and the double towers of Century City. The view at night was ridiculously stunning, (if I had been able to appreciate anything at all), and because I was up so high, nine stories, I never closed the blinds.

I heard the rattling and scraping, but in my stupor I had incorporated it into a dream.
When I finally did open my eyes, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I blinked. And blinked. And blinked again.
Then I tried to jump up…but I was paralyzed.
There, looking me straight in the eye, as he made his way one foot, then one arm, then sloowwwwly the rest of his body – was a man.

“Am I still asleep?” I was asking myself, still blinking and trying to move.
My mind was racing and my heart was pounding.
“Was it the drugs? Oh yeah, I’m not on any.”
“This can’t be real, I must be hallucinating.”

Never once breaking eye contact, the man walked ever so deliberately to the end of my bed.
Something was wrapped around him as he crawled though the window, it looked like a cape. Once he came to a stop, facing me; with a bit of dramatic flair, I saw the glistening of snowy white feathers, and I heard a very distinctive swooooooosh as he unfurled the most massive set of… wait for it…wings!
They were enormous and majestic with their etherial,shimmery,almost iridescent feathers. I’ll never forget the sound of them. Have I mentioned how huge they were? They filled the room.
The wings definitely made an impression.

He was an angel. At the foot of my bed.

“Oh it’s an angel – well, that’s okay, um, wtf? NO it’s not! What does this mean? Shit. It can’t be good.” (Sample of my train of thought at the time).

I was scared, but I can’t say I was terrified. You have to remember, some weird shit was going down in my life at that time on a daily basis, but this? This took the cake. A visitation. Like right out of the bible. Not to be irreverent but, Holy cow!
How did I rate an angelic drop in? Surely, he had better places to be, like the Vatican, in a war zone, with the dying…’uh oh, am I dying?’

I was still paralyzed but wide, wide awake. I’d never been so awake in my life. I was almost hyper aware.

“What would help you feel less afraid?” He asked in his manly, telepathic angel voice.
“My cat” I answered in my mind. (for the love of God, why didn’t I say George Clooney?) I had given my cat to my sister because I was traveling so much back then, and I missed him desperately.

As fast as you could say abracadabra, Moomie was on my pillow, purring his trademark motorboat purr in my ear. I could move my hand up to touch and hold his furry paw – but only my hand. Believe me, I tried to make a run for it.

Then I fell asleep.

What?! I know. I couldn’t believe it either.
I hadn’t fallen asleep that fast for months…and there was an ANGEL AT THE FOOT OF MY BED.
What can I say? His presence was actually very comforting, and with that angel telepathy he was reassuring me, telling me I was safe and everything was going to be okay.

I woke up a couple of times and looked toward the end of the bed, and there he was, standing vigil, wings spread out wide, showing off. That surprised me. He must have drawn the short straw, and been relegated to pull an all-nighter.

I wished I’d asked questions. I’m sure I must have, it IS my nature, but I don’t remember any conversation between us, only his reassurance.

The next time I opened my eyes, the room was light – and he was gone, my angel intruder. So was my cat, darn it.
But I felt rested and safe and somehow…special.

It was a turning point in my awakening journey. I started to feel better. I would pray to HIM every night now. For comfort, for peace, for a return visit.

So far no such luck, but occasionally I feel him. We have a “thing“.

Sending you angel love,
Xox

PS. I went to the library (pre-computer) and looked at books about angel visits, you know what makes the biggest impression on everyone? Yep, those wings.

Listen to it:
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/angl-at-the-foot-of-my-bed

“Miracles can happen, even to those who are small, flammable, and dressed all in black.”
― Lemony Snicket

This being a Flash Back Friday, it gives me the opportunity to recall events, places, people and bad hair styles from my past. So, when I sat down to write, this story of a mystical experience I had back in the day came to mind.
It is just one of many I experienced back then.

If you recall, I was having a hard time of it back in the early nineties.
I had a good life. Great job, money, travel, the whole shebang, but I had opened myself up to a very life altering spiritual experience – awakening is a better word, and it had knocked me on my ass – spiritually speaking.
(I wrote a few posts about it. You can find them under We Have An Agreement in the search section of the sidebar)

I was having a hell of a time staying grounded which has its own set of problems, the worst ones being, I HATED how I felt and I could find NO joy in life.

“If this is enlightenment? It sucks and you can have it!” I’d yell to no one in particular.

It is my understanding, garnered from the very extensive and exhaustive study of ME and my experience; that the Universe in order to keep you in the game, lays a carpet studded with mystical miracles at your feet. In a blatant display of showoffery, they are so IN YOUR FACE that as whacked out and pissed off as you’ve become – you still see them.

So, I’m a wackjob on my way to work a jewelry show, and I stop at a drugstore on my route to get my favorite gum at the time, Carefree peppermint. It came in a hurt your eyes, bright yellow package, with twenty four delicious sticks of yumminess that you’d pull out from the top. It was one of the few things that made me happy, so of course the drugstore was out of it. Nothing else appealed to me, so I left – gum less and grumpy.

As I pulled onto LaCienega and waited at the light across from the Beverly Center, I could hear the radio in the car to the left of me, even with my windows up, blaring the Rod Stewart song “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You.”
As I shot the two young men with the questionable musical taste, my best exasperated, too cool for school, are you f-ing kidding me, stink eye; the one closest, motioned for me to roll down my window.
Did I mention that they looked like angels? GQ model angels, with big white toothed smiles? But since it was West Hollywood I just assumed they were gay and going to ask for directions.

I rolled down my window at the longest red light in history, and the beautiful model/angel reached out to hand me something. I know I made a WTF face as I pulled my whole body to the left to be able to reach my arm far enough to take what he was so intent on giving me.

It had a bright yellow wrapper. It was a stick of my Carefree Peppermint Gum!
I kid you not.

I sat there, holding the gum, with my bottom jaw hanging in my lap, while the drivers behind me began to honk, as the light had been green for a second already, and they were very important and I was making them late. 

The two smiley guys were up ahead, the Rod Stewart song still hanging in the hair like cheap perfume.

If you know that section of LaCienega heading south, you know there are several lights in quick secession that are synced up in such a way that they are perpetually red.
It’s a joke, but not the funny kind, and if I hadn’t been on my gum quest I would have avoided it at all costs.

So in less than a minute I am again stopped next to my new best friends, who are still smiling, Rod is still singing, and I’m composed enough to mouth Thank You while holding up the gum.
We did that for three lights until they finally turned left. Either the song had finished or they were embarrassed that they had given me their last piece of gum.

Okay, so I knew that was weird. I’m not even sure I told anyone. I had turned so dark and odd at that point, dressing all in black with pennies in my shoes, that I don’t think anyone was taking anything I said seriously anyway.

Here’s the kicker.
When I got back to the shop after doing the show in Santa Monica for three days, I went about my usual mindless tasks, one of them being to check the answer machine.
Yes, early ninties, remember? Cell phones were the size and weight of bricks. We all had answer machines, and the one that day at work told me it was full.

73 messages.
Jeez.
Okay.
Press Play.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles that’s what you do

Yep. Rod Stewart, THAT song, every message until the tape ran out.

Explain that away.

I guess I just needed minty fresh breath and to hear that I was loved, and BOY did I!
Xox

Tell me the story of your miracle!

Xox

Here’s the audio if that’s what you prefer.
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/rod-stewart-carefree

Let me give a quick recap, for those of you that haven’t read parts I & II.
(But I suggest you do)
This is a recounting of the spiritual awakening that happened to me in late 1993.

Me, the shitty meditator, suddenly can’t stop meditating, and then crazy, mystical experiences ensue, one of them being a booming voice telling me: “We have an agreement!”…twice.
In my pre-technology search to find out what the hell is happening, I encountered an energy worker, “T” with whom I got a “body work” session.
There, now I think you’re all caught up!

I’ve actually been hesitant to write about what came next, because it wasn’t pretty.
But in the spirit of full disclosure, here goes.

I had the body/energy work, which wasn’t a massage, as my naïveté had led me to believe. His hands never touched my body. They radiated lots of heat, and gave me a tingling feeling as they passed about 6-8 inched above me.
Well, that’s a lie.
He poked and prodded my feet with such intense pressure, I kept yelping, and pulling away. His response? “Breathe through it”.
Thanks pal.

On my way out, he mentioned that I should get some apple cider vinegar to put in a bath, and soak 20 minutes to move out any toxins. He also said I may feel sick.
As I was walking around the Von’s near my house, getting the vinegar and a People Magazine, I started to feel nauseous. Let’s just say, I barely got home without defiling my car. I proceeded to projectile vomit all day and all night for 3 days!
I can remember in my vomit induced semi coma, calling in sick to work, drooling into my pillow and asking the Universe, or whoever would listen, what the hell was happening to me.
“Detox” was all I got.

“T” called during that time to check on me. He actually laughed when I told him how sick I was. “Good, get all that shit out” he said. I never did get used to his weird sense of humor and bedside manner. “It’s all stuck emotion; name it as it leaves.” So I did.
“That’s fear…that’s anger…that’s sadness.” I didn’t have to make it up, the emotion would name itself on its way out. I still do that to this day.

I did tell him I was worried I hadn’t kept any food down is three days, and he suggested I ask “them” to let the food stay, and not leave as vomit. That actually worked. It was so freaky to eat toast and tea, and a half hour later, have the vomit be clear. How does THAT work?

Also, I had no idea the Universe had a request line.

About two weeks later I met “T” for lunch, and he announced that I was ready for another session.
NO WAY, JOSE!!!
He just laughed, telling me that the first time is always the worst, and that mine was particularly ferocious because I am someone who likes “to move fast”.

Why is my process so funny to him, and how is it he thinks he has me all figured out?
He was fast becoming one of my least favorite people, AND
I went the next day for more energy work.

WHAT is my problem!!?? Have I lost my mind???
Not yet.

(To be continued)
XoxJanet

So, it’s the fall of 1993, and there’s some weird shit going down.
My meditations are turning pretty darn mystical AND
I just had the experience in meditation of having a voice yell
“We have an agreement”…twice.
Now you’re thinking; “That’s impossible, it must have been a neighbor, or the TV”….but it wasn’t.

Now, I blame the fact that I was bored with my life back then.
Good job, great friends, travel, no man, but the looking was fun, but I was constantly thinking; “Is this all there is? Day in, day out? There’s gotta be more.”
I was by no means miserable, just bored.

I needed some ZaZaZu. Well…be careful what you wish for, because the Universe knows ZaZaZu. It created ZaZaZu, and it opened a giant can of ZaZaZu on me…because I asked.

I covertly put the word out, that I needed some answers to all my questions about the crazy that was happening nightly at my apartment.
That sent me on a sort of back alley, spiritual wild goose chase, with tarot card readers, and psychics and every shade of “woo-woo” character right out of central casting.
Which led me to wonder: “Are these my people? Really?!”

I finally remembered my channel friend, who I went to see over the years for relationship problems. I called her to book a session. 
As far as she knew, it was more “Janet boy trouble”, and on my way over I worried that this whole thing was above her pay grade, so to speak.
So you can imagine my shock when she answered the door and said “Sit down quick, you DO HAVE AN AGREEMENT!”

Shut up!

The session went like this: “They” talked a lot about my agreement and my destiny.
It went a long time. Two cassette tapes worth. It got dark out.
I just sat there dumbfounded, and cried. It was the pressure, you have a lot to live up to, being told your destiny!
And I was hungry.

A couple of problems arose. 
1) Back in those days we recorded these readings on cassette tapes. I usually played them in my car, obsessively, searching every word for meaning.
From that day forward, the tapes never recorded for me again…ever.
When I played it, it was gibberish. One of my music/sound tech friends said it sounded like it recorded backwards, which is impossible…right? WTF?
Anyway, they were unlistenable. Later when asked, “They” said I had heard it, and they didn’t want me to overthink it. 
Problem was: 2) After about 12 hours, I couldn’t and still can’t, remember a thing they said that day…it just felt big.

My friend was pretty out of it after the session, but as I left she invited me to meet her guru, which she explained she never did.
A week later, I met her at a house in the Hollywood Hills.
There were snacks, there were tapes of her guru playing on the TV and there was a healer/energy worker there that everyone was all gaga over. I tried to see who he was, but I couldn’t over the groupies. Everyone seemed really nice and relatively normal, but after staying an appropriate amount of time, I started the steep descent, (in killer high heels) down the driveway to my car.

About half way down I heard someone running up behind me. He was barley five feet tall and extremely out of breath.  
“Where are YOU going?” he gasped.
“Um…home?”
“I’m T, I do bodywork at the Ashram up north, but I’m in LA for a bit, and you need some.”
He hands me his card. Funny thing was that a really serene woman up at the house 
had given me her card for some bodywork also. Did I have a neon sign on my forehead that said IN DIRE NEED Of BODYWORK?
Yes, the answer is – yes I did – to the people that read that kind of invisible signage.
He stared at me with his big blue eyes, trying to see into my soul, but I was suspicious, and access was denied.

Three days later, the thought of bodywork would not leave my brain.
NOW I know when that happens to really listen, but it took three days, back then, for me to get out the two business cards and decide who to call.
What’s bodywork anyway, I asked myself. I was convinced it must be a really killer massage. Haha! That makes me laugh so hard…NOW!!

The woman’s card was sweet and pretty and smelled like lavender, I swear!
I knew I wanted to go to her. 
Great! Decision made.
So I was taken aback when a man answered, and I recognized his Australian accent. Shit! It was T the Ashram healer guy!
I had NO intention of calling him. None!
And yet, that’s who I dialed! Freakin’ Universe!

My first impulse was to hang up, but I didn’t, I made an appointment for the next day.
(To be continued)

XoxJanet