Psychics, Past Lives, and Spirit Guides, oh my!

The first Saturday of every month is “Renew Your Spirit Saturday” at the new age shop in town. So I signed up for an intuitive reading. My choice of psychic was based primarily on her 40 years of study and experience, which balanced my doubts about the angels and guides and divine messages she promised to evoke. I admit I was skeptical. How could someone tell me about my future in twenty-five minutes? Smoke and mirrors, I thought as I sat across from the psychic behind a rice-paper screen as people wandered nearby.

I came armed with two pieces of advice. My scientist friend said, “Don’t tell her anything about yourself and don’t answer her questions.” Mary, who I share this blog with, said, “Ask her about our blog.” I’d planned to do both and did neither.

The psychic, a middle-aged woman dressed in beige slacks, a white top with a long white-fringed scarf around her neck, looked nothing like a psychic. What was I expecting—long trailing skirt imprinted with mystical symbols, a peasant blouse, a scarf tied around her flowing black hair?

As she took my hands, I warned her that I was skeptical. “That’s okay,” she said, “most people are.” We held hands; her eyes closed, mine open. She was summoning my guides and I sensed when she let go of my hands that none of them had showed up. So the reading began in very general terms—we are entering a period of awakening and cleansing. The recent disasters and death are evidence of that. Growth leads to love of all things. People who have died in these disasters have chosen to go. I could feel myself stiffen. What did any of that have to do with my future?

Then suddenly one of my guides made an appearance. This guide wanted me to go further in seeking awareness. Out of nowhere, the psychic saw a joyful side to me that I’m not nurturing because I don’t believe in it. Now that was spooky, I thought. Since I’d just written my last blog about finding a sense of play with my grandson Dylan.

The guides gave other instructions. (Guides are people who have known me either in this life or past lives.) I needed to meditate, which will lead to more awakening in my writing. (She asked what my job was and I told her I wrote mystery novels.) I needed to shift my thinking, and then I’d start to rework my writing, take it in another direction, maybe a more spiritual path. How did she know that I’d been thinking that very thing all week? How I really wanted to expand my writing beyond mysteries.

When I mentioned a nightmare I’d had that week, she told me that my past lives are still hanging around giving me nightmares, holding me back, she explained, “You’re an old soul. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve had many past lives.”

Then toward the end of the reading she said, “You’ll be a well-known writer.” Okay, I know, she was telling me what I wanted to hear. But the strange thing was it felt right, not in an egotistical way, but in an “of course,” kind of way. I felt she was confirming something I already knew.

Did I believe her? I don’t know. I do know that I felt lighter as I left the shop and exited into a blue sky and sun everywhere after a solid week of winter grey.

Life tangles you up, beats you down sometimes, and so what does it hurt to believe in guides who trail your spirit, energies that can be directed, and a woman who tells you what you want to hear? My visit to the psychic was an act of optimism, because it presumed a future and the possibility of change.

Do you believe in psychics, spirit guides, and/or past lives?