Communicating With My Cat

For many years, I had an indoor/outdoor cat named Puffer.  She was an excellent cat and companion for my wife Debra and I. 

She had one habit, however, we did not like. She caught and ate our garden birds–usually two or three a week. We would walk into the kitchen and find feathers and bird parts scattered all around. I thought to myself, “I wish she wouldn’t do that,” but foolishly enough I never clearly told her not to kill birds. After all, it’s natural for cats to catch and kill birds for food.

When we moved to Florida, there were even more birds than in California! Beautiful, brightly colored birds. Our realtor, who previously rented the house we bought, told us she had told her cat not to catch the birds and her cat had left them alone. So I clearly told Puffer not to kill the birds here.

She looked at me questioningly. She was a great hunter beast, accustomed to hunting her food. So I repeated “Do not kill any birds here.” We fed her plenty of food and she should eat the cat food. She seemed to get it.

Puffer demonstrated that she understood what I said. In four years, she brought only two birds in the house. Debra told me that once, while I was away in California, a huge flock of about two hundred robins came and filled our yard. Puffer caught one and brought in the house, but very gently. The bird was still living and Debra was able to guide it back outside so it could rejoin its flock. That was more like Puffer wanted to show Debra the bird–”Look what I found!”. After all, I had told Puffer to not kill birds, but had said nothing about not catching them.

So only once in four years did Puffer catch a bird and eat it, even though these birds are more tame than the birds in California and there are greater numbers of them. She could easily catch ten a week and would be doing so if I hadn’t told her not to kill these birds.

Occasionally Puffer does kill a rat or a mouse so I know she can still catch creatures and is simply respecting my request not to kill the birds. Good cat!

I have seen how I as a spirit can get my message across to our cat. She is also able to clearly communicate to me.

Puffer loves chicken and turkey (of course, they are birds, after all). These are her favorite things to eat, and we often give her raw scraps of them when we are cooking these for ourselves.

One day I discovered a raw chicken breast that had been in the refrigerator for a bit too long. It smelled slightly bad. I decided to offer it to Puffer to see if she wanted to eat it. I put it in her dish. She ran over and smelled it. Then she looked directly at me and began to move her front paws on the floor as if to cover up this spolied chicken. She was treating this old chicken as if it was cat poo that needed burying! I laughed and laughed. She had made it very clear to me what she thought about this old piece of chicken.

Spirits CAN communicate, even if they don’t speak the same language, and even if they are different life forms.

Choosing Spirit Over Body

One Saturday morning I woke up with my body not feeling right. I had been doing an intensive chiropractic program and a nutrition program to improve my overall body condition and the weather had been very hot all week (nearly 100 degrees every day, plus humidity), so my body was having a lot to deal with.

When I put my body in a standing position, getting up out of bed, it immediately became dizzy and as I tried to get it to walk, I had a hard time standing my body up straight. As I tried to get my body to walk, it kept listing to the left and running into the wall. I actually had to have my body hold on to the wall to walk into the next room without it falling. My body was also dizzy and feeling a bit nauseous. The chiropractic adjustments in my neck had created a temporary pain in my left big toe, making it difficult to walk, so on top of everything else, my body was limping as well.

I had an appointment with my chiropractor, so I went, even though I could hardly walk. My husband Larry drove me.

I had my chiropractic adjustment, but my body wasn’t feeling much better when I left. From a body viewpoint, all it wanted to do was just go home and lie down.

The previous day, we had already made a plan to go to a farmer’s market, which was about a forty-five-minute drive from the chiropractor’s office. I was excited about going to the farmer’s market because here in Florida, all the farmer’s markets close over the summer because of the heat, and this one had found a shady location where they could continue the market as usual. I love farmer’s markets and really wanted to go. I also wanted to write an article about it.

“My body doesn’t feel good, but as a spirit, I don’t want to miss going to the market,” I said to Larry. Of course, the market was every Saturday, but this was the only Saturday I had time available to go. I was working on a project that required Saturday meetings because it was the only time others were available, but that Saturday they had switched the meeting to Sunday.

We both agreed that the best thing to do was to do what I wanted to do as a spirit, and just get my body into a condition where it could walk and be comfortable. We decided to go to the market, and my body would be fine.

I gave Larry the address of the market and told him it’s approximate physical location. As he began to drive the car in that direction, I closed my eyes and my body promptly fell asleep.

Just as we were nearing the market, I woke my body up. We found the market and parked the car. I got my body out of the car and stood it up straight. It felt fine. No dizziness, no nausea, my big toe didn’t even hurt.

Larry and I happily walked around the market for over and hour and I had no attention on my body at all. We had some lunch and spent the rest of the day with a lot of physical activity–doing errands, walking in the pool, and working in the garden until 9:00 in the evening. 

We were both very happy that I followed what I wanted to do as a spirit instead of allowing myself to be limited by my body.

Birth Day

Today is my birth day. When I  awakened my body this morning from it’s night of slumber, my first thought was “What shall I give birth to today?” The thought surprised and delighted me. 

In our body-oriented culture, we celebrate the day our bodies are born on earth. But a birth day is more than that. It’s the day we come into existence as a spirit-in-a-body life form. I want to celebrate both being a spirit and having a body.

I was just noticing the other day that even though my body is aging, as a spiritual being I am getting more and more aware and able. I want to celebrate my increasing spiritual awareness and ablity with each passing physical year.

On my birthday today, I want to acknowledge and admire that my body is continuing to serve me well–not that it is getting older and falling apart, but that it is continuing to renew itself and get healthier and healthier. Instead of agreeing with the physical idea of entropy and expecting my body to decay with age, I want to affirm my body is a living organism that is capable of replenishing itself as long as I choose for it to continue.

On my birthday today, I want to acknowledge and admire my spirit ability to give birth, to create, and give birth to new intentions for what I want to create for myself in the coming year. 

A few years ago, I made a cake for a friend of mine, for her birthday. I didn’t want to celebrate her body with candles for every year her body had been alive. I wanted to celebrate her as an eternal spiritual being. And so I made what I now call an “infinity cake”–a round cake with the edges cut off to make eight sides, with 8 candles, 8 being the symbol of infinity. 

There! Now I feel like I’m celebrating the day I, a spirit, started my joyous adventure here on Earth in a physical body. I’m looking forward to many more earth-years to come in this lifetime.

Knowing

I was in a tenth grade algebra class. The teacher had written a complex, convoluted math and algebra problem on the chalkboard as a test for us.

I looked at the problem in dismay. I had no idea, at all, how to work out this problem using math and algebra. It just did not seem possible.

So instead of using math and algebra, I just used my ability to know. Suddenly, I knew the answer to this problem was 2  1/4. How I knew this I didn’t know, but nevertheless the answer clearly was 2  1/4.

I wrote down the answer that I had just known. Of course I couldn’t show how I had worked it out through math and algebra. I hadn’t used those at all to get the answer.

Two and a quarter was the correct answer. The teacher was stunned that I had gotten the right answer and I wasn’t able to tell him how I had figured it out using math and algebra.

But then, I hadn’t used those tools. I used another tool–the ability to just know something, an ability that was not currently being taught in public school.

I’ve seen children use these kinds of spirit abilities even if they aren’t aware they are spirits. In the tenth grade, I didn’t know I was a spirit, but I still had abilities like just knowing the right answer.

Imagine what our schools and society would be like if these spirit abilities were acknowledged and cultivated in our children! Spirit does exist and its presence and abilities should be encouraged in our children. How wonderful that would be!

The Windfall

On July 17, 1987–I will never forget this night–I had an experience that changed my life forever.

I was living in Inverness, California, a village about 35 miles north of San Francisco, in a forest on a peninsula that separates a beautiful bay from the Pacific Ocean. Having grown up in suburbia and then moving into the city, living in such a rural place was a radical departure for me. But two years earlier, I had woken up one morning and knew it was time to move to a place where I could experience nature more directly. It was so clear to do this that I got right up and went looking for a place to live that very day. Once I made the decision to move, everything opened up immediately, and I went from renting a tiny studio apartment in the city to buying a whole two-bedroom house in the woods, for the same monthly payment.

With the exception of going to Girl Scout camp for two weeks every summer from ages eight through sixteen, and an extra-curricular nature study course in grammar school, I had not directly experienced nature in my whole life. For the first time, I became aware of nature as something immediately present–it wasn’t “out in the wilderness” somewhere. For the first time, I experienced the natural progression of wild flowers appearing from nothing in the spring into full bloom and then disappearing completely until the following spring when they would appear again as if by magic. For the first time, my neighbors were deer and raccoon.

For the first time, I witnessed the whole cycle of watching green leaves unfurl from bare branches to their graceful flutter to the ground in the first winds of winter. A huge plum tree hanging over my cottage burst into pale pink blossoms each February to let me know spring was on its way and summer meant collecting blackberries for breakfast from the bushes growing wild in my front yard. Each day of winter was obvious as I shivered from my warm bed to the wood stove, where I actually had to light a fire for heat. The moon caught my attention too, occasionally shining through my bedroom skylight, as it made its monthly rounds.

I lived there alone and quietly for the next two years, without the constant activity of city life. I had never been alone like that before, nor had I lived in a natural ecosystem. I completely loved it.

On this particular night, the coastal wind was blowing harder than usual. It had just gusted up unexpectedly to almost gale force after a long period of summer calm. I went outdoors and felt it whipping around my body as the 200-foot trees swayed and creaked as if they might break at any moment. It felt very powerful to me, like a wind of change. Without thinking, spontaneously I said aloud, “All right, wind, if there is something in my life that I no longer need, take it away!”

Immediately, the lights went out–a power failure–but only in my house. I looked across the street and next door and the lights were still shining though the windows into the dusk. My assistant, Mary, was inside adding new names to the newsletter mailing list in the computer, and that went out also. Within a few seconds, the power came back on and we started up the computer again. No sooner did Mary begin to enter names, the power went out again. When the power came on, we loaded the list again, and for the third time, the power went out. We gave up for the night.

The next day I was out all day. As I was driving up the winding road to my house that evening, I suddenly knew that Mary had been unable to load the mailing list because it had been damaged in the power outages. Sure enough, there was a note waiting for me, with exactly that message.

I burst into tears. My whole business revolved around that list and I didn’t have a backup. Terrified and alone, I cried all night. I called every friend and family member and nobody answered the phone. I called suicide help lines and nobody would talk to me. I was all alone and had just lost my business.

The following morning the sun was shining, the wind was calm and I had cried all my tears. Only one option seemed clear to me. I said out loud, “OK, if I am not to do the work I have been doing, what am I to do?” And then, with utmost clarity, I became aware of the words, “Learn how to live in harmony with Nature, and write a book about what you learn.”

This whole experience was so dramatic in the way that it happened, I felt I had no choice but to follow this new path, even though I had no clue where it would lead, what would happen, or even what the next step was. But since that day, as I keep taking the step before me, the next step becomes apparent. And along the way, since then, my life has unfolded in wonderful ways I could never have predicted or imagined or asked for. I’m still working on that book, and every day I understand more about nature and become more able to write about it.

At first, I attributed this experience to something “beyond myself.” It was only many years later that I realized that everything that occurred was the result of my own command for anything I didn’t need to be taken away. And so it was. 

Intentional Switch

One of the things I love to as a spirit is fix things and get them working again. And so I started a business being available to do odd jobs fixing things around the house, in the garden, and with cars.

First week in June 2009, I got a call to check out a garbage disposal to see how much it would cost to fix or replace, since the old one had quit.

I got there. I looked under the sink at the garbage disposal. It looked OK to me.

I turned on the water. Then, I intended it to “Run” and turned on the garbage disposal switch.

It ran, of course and sounded OK.

I then switched the disposal on and off several times to insure that it would go on or off as it was directed. It ran perfectly.

Next, I asked the tenant, “What was  wrong with the garbage disposal?”

“It wouldn’t turn on. It hasn’t worked for months. What did you do to get it to run?” He was puzzled.

“I intended it to ‘run’ as I switched it on. So it did.”

We both laughed.

It seems that electrical equipment can respond to the intention of the operator.

In my experience, if I flip on a switch and intend nothing, then nothing is more likely  to happen.

If I flip on a switch, while thinking “it won’t come on,” then often, it won’t come on.

When I intend it to “run” as I flip on the switch, then more often, it runs.

To prove that this wasn’t a once in a lifetime, fluke thing, I tried it again the next week on a different disposal with a different customer in another city. Her disposal hadn’t ever worked in the six months they had been in this condo. Wouldn’t even turn on.

Again, using my intention, I intended it to “Run” and and flipped the garbage disposal switch to the “on” position. It worked! The garbage disposal turned on!

This disposal, however, did need replacing because its outflow pipe was melted closed inside and there was nowhere for the ground up food to go.

This customer got the new disposal she intended AND I got to have a disposal “RUN” again, as I intended.

We both got what we intended.

What a turn on!

Just to Amuse Myself

It was a little after noon.  I was hurriedly changing clothes, expecting a visitor who was bringing some forms for me to review.  We had spoken on the phone but this was our first meeting in person.

It was then that the toilet stopped up.  A few stabs with a plunger–a few more stabs–oh, expletive!   My guest would arrive any moment.  There was no time to call the apartment manager.   I have access to another bathroom but it is not near by, so I, as a spirit, made an intention to have this taken care of before bedtime.

My personal assistant was leaving on an errand.  I asked her to be sure and come back here before she went home, in case I needed her help.  

My visitor arrived promptly and  my attention was focused on our discussion.  After she left,  I remembered my, er, situation.  I considered my options as I tried the plunger again.  The maintenance man works at his other job until almost midnight, so I needed somebody else.  Maybe the manager’s husband would be willing to help.   The manager  is usually in her office until three, and it is almost three now.  I dial the number and she answers.  Whew!

“Is there anyone who could unstop my toilet before bedtime?”  She hesitates, I hear her speaking with someone, and then she says that there is.  Puzzled, I ask,  ”Is he from here?”  She says, “Not yet, but he will be in a minute.”  I wonder, is she interviewing a new maintenance person?

Five minutes later, there is a knock on the door.  In walks a man with a plumber’s snake, and in a few more minutes, the deed is done.

I had seen him a few days before.  He and his wife have just signed a lease agreement.  He says he is a truck driver.  His tee-shirt has the name of an evangelical  church on it.  It seems like he likes to help people.  I am profoundly grateful.  I didn’t ask him why he happened to have a plumber’s snake in his truck. 

I was still in a state of amazement when my personal assistant returned.  It was only later that I realized that I must have spaced out and dropped a diaper wipe down the toilet.  Oh, my god, I’m having senior moments.  Yikes!

Then I relax.   I realize that as a spirit I like to create these little dramas so I can practice my spirit abilities of problem-solving.  I do these things just to amuse myself, just to experience the magic that is life!

A Soul’s Tender Touch

Speaking Up

“Speakers influence, encourage, motivate and communicate to the spirit.”
– Dottie Walters

In the summer of 2008, I decided that I wanted more speaking engagements. As a published author, I was occasionally invited to speak to clubs and at conferences, but as a spirit I decided that I wanted to be more proactive about creating speaking engagements, rather than simply waiting for them to come my way. I would occasionally ask marketing people I met if they could help me with this, but none of them knew much about it.

Then at the end of the year, my husband and I were invited by several friends to join the local chapter of a national club that helps people be better public speakers. This seemed like a good idea, and a response to my intention to increase my ability and activity as a public speaker. We were having great fun giving our speeches, learning new skills, and making new friends.

Even though I had spoken in public many times before, I had never had any training. While my audiences enjoyed my speeches, after joining the club, I could see that I didn’t have the professional polish needed to feel completely confident as a speaker. I liked to speak, and I did speak when I was invited, and I was even paid to speak, but I was not doing anything to generate more speaking engagements. I basically considered myself to be a writer, not a speaker.

After I gave my third speech to the club, the next morning, I suddenly felt “alive” as a speaker, like my identity as a speaker had now been activated. I felt like “I am a speaker!” now, it was something I confidently knew how to do and could use. I even wrote in my journal, “I communicate: I write, I speak.” Speaking became a medium of communication for me as a spirit, a mode through which I could create.

I wanted to get out into the community and speak at local venues, and get others from my club out speaking too. I was very excited about this and started making notes on what I could do to make this happen. As a spirit, I was very enthusiastic.

A few days later, I was talking with my husband Larry about this and he asked me what were some possible places I could speak. I listed off some local clubs that I knew had lunch meetings where speakers were invited.

One of the clubs I mentioned was a club I had been thinking of joining a few years before. I had decided against joining this club, mostly because I didn’t have the time to devote to it, but at the time, I had given them my card and told them I was an author.

All of a sudden, just one day short of a week later, I received an email from this very club, inviting me to speak!

This was such a dramatic demonstration to me of how intention works. I could see that the possibility to speak at this club had been there for several years, yet, it laid dormant, like a seed underground, until my intention to speak activated it. I just casually happened to be very specific about speaking in my local community and mentioned this club in particular, and they contacted me within a week–without my doing anything in the physical universe.

Following this, I remembered a book I had purchased many years ago about the business of public speaking, not how to speak, but how to get speaking engagements and manage your public speaking business. I had not read it in well over ten years, even though it had been sitting on my bookshelf, available all that time. Suddenly, I was inspired to read it, and was delighted to find that it contained, step-by-step, everything I needed to do to become a successful public speaker. The information I had been seeking was right in my house all along, and I had chosen it years before I realized that I, as a spirit, am a public speaker.

That the world works this way just continues to be amazing and wonderful to me!

Simply Marvelous

We four siblings had just lost our beloved mother. She was the rock that held us together. She was upbeat, spiritually strong, and had a wickedly funny wit.  Her highest compliment was that something or someone was “simply marvelous.” Well said.  Our mother was simply marvelous. We were lucky to have her and we all knew it.

During our mother’s two-year illness we four did what we could to help her cope with the failing of her body. Our skills seemed to be just what she needed.

However, during those two years, our brother Joe began behaving in an angry and selfish manner towards our mom and the rest of us. He would forget or dismiss promises he had made to help us. Eventually the three of us accepted the fact that we couldn’t depend on him.  We did however, continue to support each other and welcome Joe’s contributions when they came.

We three had decided to behave with kindness and compassion. We didn’t say this with words.  It seems that as spirits, the three of us just KNEW how to do this loving/grieving/goodbye thing together. For example, when one sibling needed something, such as a break, another one suddenly showed up to take over.  If one of us was an “early bird” helper, the other found that they became a “night owl” to cover that hospital shift. One of us became the liaison with the physicians, another became the liaison with numerous concerned friends, and the third became the financial manager of our mother’s affairs. And we didn’t have to ASK each other for anything!  We just seemed understand what needed to be done and we did it together. And we kept Joe informed of everything that was happening.

Joe seemed to become further and further distanced from us.  We didn’t know what to do about this and things were getting worse. During the last week of our mother’s life, Joe became dangerously paranoid, angry, and frighteningly aggressive towards us. Even after our mother died, he seemed to do everything in his power to alienate, hurt, and push us three away from him and his children.

We three were devastated by what looked like yet ANOTHER loss. My two siblings were resolved to cut all ties to Joe to prevent any further heartache. But I couldn’t do it.  As a spirit, I cried out against this impending family break. I remembered that Joe didn’t always behave like this!  Joe had been wonderful when we were all younger together! We were an amazing team.  There seemed to be nothing we couldn’t do when we worked TOGETHER.  As a spirit, I could not forget this.

So, I began sending greeting cards, e-mailing notes, jokes, and gifts to Joe and his family. For more than a year I ignored the frequent insults, accusations, and other hurtful messages. I just kept sending my notes, cards, and sentimental gifts. My siblings and my husband noticed my positive actions and they began doing the same loving things. Each told me at different times they couldn’t help but follow my lead. I knew that as a spirit, I needed to heal our family.

One year after our mother’s death, our grief seemed worse than ever. The three of us would talk to each other and help each other through that sad time. We didn’t know how Joe was faring because most of our phone calls and e-mails were ignored.

Joe finally e-mailed us because he was looking for the phone number of a distant relative who knew our father and mother from childhood. He was planning to visit that state and hoped to tell this relative about the passing of our mother, father, and brother. This distant relative was the only connection to any family we four had left in the world. But their phone number had changed years earlier and no one knew how to contact them.

My two siblings dismissed this request. But, even though the chance was remote, I spent hours turning my house upside down with the spirit intention of finding this single link to any family we had left.

Finally, I found a phone number in an old Christmas card for this relative’s granddaughter. I called that number and spoke to my 30 year old cousin whom I hadn’t seen since she was three!  She was ecstatic to “meet” me over the phone and we were both delighted to find out that we lived within 15 miles of each other!  She had been desperately missing her family back home and now she had an “Auntie” living a short distance away. In turn, I now had family living close to me!  My cousin gave me her grandfather’s number and we promised to stay in regular touch. When I hung up the phone I felt happiness and hope for the first time since our mother died. I heard my mother’s spirit laughing with delight.

 I immediately sent the phone number to my three siblings along with the great news that this elderly relative was indeed alive and that his granddaughter lived in my area.  For the first time, Joe seemed truly touched and began expressing deep gratitude for my efforts and kindnesses towards him. Finally, it seemed that he, as a spirit, was beginning to trust me!  Over the next year, Joe began trusting our other siblings too.

When Joe visited our relative, he found out that we four had an extended family in that state who were very anxious to reunite with us.

Eight months later we FOUR siblings are dancing together at our cousin’s wedding!   Our elderly relative is there.  Our whole extended family is there!  We’re laughing together, and sharing stories. We belong to them.  And most importantly, we four belong to each other.  We three were so lost without our fourth.  Now, no one will be lost again.  Not on my spirit family watch!    

 And no, we have NOT become perfect siblings!  We’ve got feet of clay and personal issues like everybody else. But what we do have now is the trust between us to work out life’s problems.  We’ve always been an invincible team when we faced this life TOGETHER.

And throughout this whole experience of healing, I frequently heard the spirit of our mother say “It’s simply marvelous!”