April is an earthy month. There's the smell of rain, new growth, and radiating warmth from the ground. The birds are singing loudly, and kids are out playing basketball once more. Then spring fever begins in earnest. We have been tilling the soil in preparation for planting, and we can hardly wait to plant and see the first sprouts to appear. The canyons begin to call out to us to come enjoy picnics and hikes in the sun.

Although many countries have already celebrated the beginning of spring, the colors really come out at Easter in the western world! People don their new apparel, with shiny new shoes and decorated hats. It is the time of year when our bodies stretch sensually toward experiencing the world outside our homes once again.

Experience – that's what this month's article is about. Even after having a psychic reading and an aura reading, and receiving all sorts of validation for my own spiritual exploration, I was still very skeptical. These "powers" that others had were not something I possessed. At least that is what I had convinced myself until I met Aynnett.

I met Aynnett through Jeraldine (of last month's article). I had just finished a book on channeling*, so I now had a better understanding of what occurred in my first intuitional reading. I was under the assumption that my visit with Aynnett would be similar. Wrong!

When Aynnett opened her door, I thought I had run into a relative. She was just about the same size, shape and age as me, and had that same look of trepidation and skepticism in her eyes! This was her first interview, and it was happening just months after she had begun a new career that usually raised eyebrows. Aynnett's reading room was the living room, complete with big screen TV and couch. Family pictures lined walls, and wonderful country crafts were scattered about. I was left with the impression of cool comfort.

I could tell Aynnett was uncomfortable with the interview because she didn't really know what to expect. So I began by telling her what I was trying to accomplish, and that Jeraldine had given me an aura reading and felt comfortable with my honest intentions. I let her know that if she told me anything in confidence, it would go no further.

As we felt more comfortable with each other, and Aynnett was telling me of her own spiritual experiences, something interesting happened. She was telling me about her "master teachers" and "spiritual guides". As she spoke about being able to reach her master teachers directly, a picture scrolled before my eyes. What was I seeing?

I rudely interrupted her, and asked excitedly, "Okay, you said that everyone has the ability to experience what you do, and that we should trust the information we receive. Let me tell you what I'm seeing. As you began talking about your master teachers I suddenly saw a picture of either one or two figures above, and I think three down below. The figures above, I'm not sure if there are one or two, because one is bright, and one looks like a shadow behind."

"That's right," she said enthusiastically. "I have two master teachers, and three guides. One of my master teachers is louder than the other, or rather, the second one is quieter."

"Did I just make this up as you were speaking?" I asked skeptically. "Then how did you know how many of each there were?" she replied. Wow! I was thinking to myself. Did I really just receive psychic information.

At this point you may be slightly confused. What are "master teachers" and "guides"? Since everyone I have seen talks about them, I asked Aynnett about this. Master teachers are those spirits who are in charge of a large number of people in the physical plane. They can be angels or souls who have chosen to remain in the non-physical state, and who help point us in the direction we need to go to learn our greatest life lessons. They can speak directly through our thoughts or through our guides. Guides are spirits who deal with one or a few of us, and help us work through our karmic patterns so they can work through them also.

By this time, I knew that Aynnett's religious faith was important to her. I asked her how she emotionally and mentally handled the disparity between psychic intuition and religion. "I have come to terms with it. Spirituality has always been separate from religion for me. Religion is how I worship God, and guide my life. But spirituality also has its roots in God, at least for me. I have been in the presence of God during my spiritual experiences, and I know that I was given this gift for a reason. I'm just not sure what it is yet. I also ask my master teachers for constant reassurance that the messages I am receiving are correct and beneficial to the client."

What intrigued me most about Aynnett was that she has just come to terms with her abilities and started to seriously development them within the last year. She had only been doing readings for the last six months. She was very emphatic that she was meant to give simple, clear and basic messages to those who needed clarity. Some people were not familiar with metaphors, and some people were threatened if you came at them with too much information at once. That's where Aynnett could step in and make messages simple. After speaking with her for an hour, I knew that her message for me was to introduce me to experiencing my own psychic abilities and to validate them. I was really excited by the prospect. Any skeptic likes to have proof!

As part of my experience with Aynnett's work, she introduced me to grounding techniques and "cold calling" to get started. "Grounding" is simply a way for us to keep our energies from being so scattered that it drives us crazy, and grounding assists us in functioning effectively in our everyday world. One can ground oneself by walking in nature, handling plants and animals on a regular basis, or by meditation. Connection with the earth renews our energy and keeps our auras (see last month's article) in tact. I chose to try meditation and visualization.

With Aynnett, I sat comfortably and closed my eyes. She asked me to picture myself as a tree, perhaps a huge oak. My branches and leaves grew out of the top of my head collecting sunlight and air to nourish me. Water flowed out of my head and neck washing away tension and negative energy. The water flowed down to my feet where my thick roots entered the ground and reached deep into the earth. The roots thinned out into thin tendrils that exchanged old energy with new energy from the earth. The roots turned upward and returned through the earth, the new shoots growing into my feet and rejoining the trunk of my tree. They brought new energy and nourishment that washed through me, and out through the waterfall.

The circularity of the vision was the most important image. I needed to feel the flow of energy as I visualized it. This technique can be used anytime, and is especially effective when I feel emotionally frazzled. The quiet, deep breathing helps calm our body and our energy field.

Another simple technique to keep your energy field intact and separate from other energy fields is to say your full name three times. "I am …… I am only ………. I am no one else but ………" Aynnett, and other intuitional readers, say that this creates a whirlwind effect in your auric field that tosses out anything that isn't you. So if you are feeling overwhelmed for any reason, try it and see if it helps. Again, it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. The concept is one that gives us a new perspective on keeping our energy high, and protecting ourselves from unseen outside influences.

Now "cold calling" is not quite as simple as grounding. "Cold calling" is a psychic version of one of those sales calls we continually get from telemarketers. I call on someone, and see if I get a response; in this case, an image of who they are and what their life is like. Aynnett gave me the names of three people she knew (and I did not). She asked me to meditate on their names, one at a time, and ask to receive information about them in the metaphor of flowers. "For instance," she said, "what kind of flower do you get an impression of? How many, do they have stems or are they floating, what colors are they, and are they moving? Do they say anything to you, how do they feel? I want you to write down everything you see and feel. Then color the picture so you don't forget what they looked like. It may take you a few tries, so don't get frustrated."

So I went home and tried this. All I ever seemed to get were static pictures of plants. The first time, I got a picture of a plant, a cross between a cabbage and cauliflower. White, uptight, and dense. However, there was no background or movement, or emotion. And it certainly didn't say anything to me. The second time I tried it, I got a picture of three tulips. They had stems, and were on a cream and red backdrop that looked like a pitted cement wall. Again, they did not say or do anything.

I called Aynnett a few days later with the results, and she sounded puzzled. "That isn't what I was expecting," she said. "Are you sure they didn't say anything or give you a sense of what was happening to them?" "No," I replied despairingly. "I guess I don't have any psychic abilities after all." "That's impossible," said Aynnett, "everyone does. We just don't know how to use them. Try again, and I'll see you next week."

I tried to cold call three more times, with no further results. However, the last time I tried to meditate on one of the names, I was tired. I slipped into what I call a "half-awake dreaming state". You know, when you are just dosing slightly, but are still somewhat aware of your surroundings. In this state, I dreamed about a woman in a red dress. She was walking bare foot outside in an inch or two of rushing water (like rain flooding a street). She had brown hair that reached her shoulders and flipped slightly, and she was carrying her shoes in one hand and a chiffon wrap of some kind over her arm. She was thinking about doing something. She didn't seem worried or concerned, just that she had things to do. Then she turned around and began walking up a hill toward a white house. It seemed to be two stories with lots of windows. Then I woke up. "That was an interesting dream," I thought. Too bad I didn't dream about flowers.

A few days later, I returned to Aynnett's. I told her about my lack of success, but also related the dream - just in case. Guess what?! Success at last. "That's her!" exclaimed Aynnett. "That is exactly what she is going through right now." "What do you mean?" I said puzzled. "My friend is very earthy and has lots of energy, which is represented in the red of her dress. She has a family situation where she is divided between two homes. She just returned to the white one you described to deal with some issues. She doesn't consider them to be problems, but issues that need to be dealt with. And she has brown hair! I guess you didn't need the flower metaphors to get the information. You chose to receive it in this format, instead."

I was thrilled. I had performed a psychic "cold call". I had actually used psychic abilities to gain information about a particular person! I almost jumped up and clapped my hands in excitement and relief.

The experiences I just related were a natural progression in my spiritual search. Once we begin to learn about concepts, terms and possibilities, we will also begin to notice our thoughts and emotions more often. We begin to recognize that coincidences happen more frequently than we thought, and that we are "right" about events and situations more often than we had noticed before. Next, we might begin to pay more attention to our dreams and try to remember them. As we learn more about metaphors and their meanings, we can begin to interpret them, and recognize the messages that are coming to us without any effort at all.

Best of all, for me, is that as I wander along this path of spiritual discovery, each person I interview has said that I was bringing them a message as well. I was destined to meet them, exchange energy, and translate that energy into something the rest of the world could understand. In fact, my astrology chart said the same thing!

Next month we will talk about the experience of having an astrological chart done. Remember the hubbub over President and Mrs. Reagan consulting an astrologer before making important decisions? Well, laugh no more. See you next time!

*See book list.