I had a come-to-Jesus moment last month. Yes, there I was meditating, when the big guy handed me a ball of light. I was certain it meant something new was coming to me. Yes, a new shiny gift was coming in to light up my life or my work. Nah!!! Much to my chagrin, it was something old returning. It was a gift that haunts me and hunts me. Alas, it was and still is mediumship.
First a little background on my journey. When I was 39 years old, my abilities opened dramatically. I was suddenly psychic and massively medium…i.e. I saw angels and heard dead people. On the psychic side, I could see people’s possible life paths, addictions, angels, and family dynamics. On the mediumship side I saw stuff like dead uncles, deceased pets, and children who had passed. It was at times amazing, ludicrous, and awful. And I was incredulous. It was so exciting to see and hear dead people that I would blab about it to anyone who’d listen. There was the time I told someone in my improv class about her deceased aunt and the white standard poodle. She told me she hated that poodle, because it bit her when she was a child. Or there was the time a man’s spirit appeared to me in a reading who was dressed elegantly and he told me his name. It turned out he had abused my client when she was a child. We were both horrified. Of course there were happy contacts, like when an aunt made someone a heavenly birthday cake just like she used to make her niece on earth. As it turned out, the first dead person I ever saw, was a loving grandmother who doted on a friend of mine who was a medical doctor. That was a good time, telling him I’d met his deceased grandma.
As time went on I became a professional psychic and medium. I was mentored by the best, specifically by Echo Bodine. And I made friends with amazing mediums, like Tara Broughton. They told me to set my boundaries and lower my expectations about understanding the messages. But as time went on I found I couldn’t manage the yammering dead people or their messages. I was very open and they always found me. Soon my home, the improv theatre, and even the mall felt like a ghost town…because ghosts and spirits were swirling around me. I also discovered that often clients wanted to talk to specific dead people, and when they weren’t the ones to come through, I felt like I wasn’t doing my job. I also thought that if the message wasn’t familiar to the client right away, I might be getting it wrong. Eventually I moved more into my psychic abilities…reading energies around clients, addressing co-dependency issues, and finding new ways for people to hook up with their own abilities, and reading their circumstances with my third eye. I subtly, but steadfastly moved away from mediumship messages. I still delivered them, but I did so sparingly.
Four years ago my family visited the California State Park of Bodie, California. Bodie is a ghost town that still stands as it did in the 1800’s. My father, Ken Roe, is a western buff and writer. As a child I spent many summers visiting there. My father’s magazine articles were used to help promote the idea of turning it into a State Park when the legislature was voting on the idea. There are dozens of buildings which contain the original contents and furnishings. A school room still has desks, books, and even the teacher’s glasses on her desk. It is truly fascinating. It made me want to see the people who lived there.
It was during our visit in 2008, that I felt called back to my roll as a medium. I could feel ghosts, spirits, and echoes of the past swirling around me. It was exciting. As a symbol of my commitment to be a medium, I put a coin into the floorboard of an old church. Then as time moved on, I forgot, and then ignored my pledge.
Last month my body, not my mind, pulled me to two different mediumship events. One was with Shannon Leischner and Suzanne Grace and the other was with Chip Coffey. During both events all the mediums reiterated the point that they were only messengers. I was reminded of the phrase my kids learned at their pre school years ago. You get what you get, so don’t have a fit. Sometimes clients forget, they’re not in charge of the messages and neither are the mediums. It was fascinating to watch. In my case, two of the messages didn’t make sense until days/ weeks after the reading. Some of the mediums had seen people their entire lives, but not all. Did you know that Chip Coffey talks about being psychic as a child, but says that he only started hearing dead people eleven years ago? It got me to thinking. I was a relatively new medium as well. Working as medium (talking to the deceased and angles) I wasn’t allowing it to look sloppy. I watched as the mediums did their work. The information was not always an obvious fit and they did not always get the deceased people the client expected. But they carried on and they did it out of love. That was obvious.
This week my eight year old blurted out of the blue that we should watch the movie “Ghost Town”. He loves it. It’s the story of a reluctant medium. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. My son talked about it for days, finally dug it out of the cupboard, and insisted we watch it together. As they say, I laughed, I cried. Oh, how I could relate to the story of someone suddenly seeing the dead and feeling overwhelmed.
So, I guess somewhere along the way, I had put out the only prayer I could, the prayer to be willing when it comes to mediumship. I am a stubborn person. I am a Taurus, hear me roar, see me resist. It took a vision of Jesus, watching three mediums do their work in person, an equally stubborn eight-year-old, and a touching movie to get me to my knees on this topic.
As spirit would have it, I’m already back to doing some mediumship work. I’ve cleared places of ghosts and given readings to several clients this week who asked to connect with their deceased loved ones. Often I find this gift can be more about being of service to the dead than the living. It’s about seeing those who can’t be seen with regular eyes and giving voice to those who don’t feel heard. It’s not so much that the deceased have unfinished business, it’s that they often have ongoing business and they’re business is their living loved ones! It truly is a privilege when you can connect loved ones. I just needed to remember that.
To my deceased clients I say this, “I’m baaaack!” But this time you may only visit during my regular office hours.
And to my medium self, I say, “You get what you get, so don’t have a fit.”
Blessings, Lorraine
Next blog…talking to a medium who’s seen dead people since she was a young child.
The Blur blog 