Readings, information and prices

Sometimes I am asked the reasoning for having two prices for readings. The prices are simply $50.00 for a walk-in and $40.00 if you have an appointment. So why is the appointment price lower?

To explain that, you need to understand the mechanisms of a psychic reading and do keep in mind that every psychic has their own twist on the mechanism just as every artist's work is a bit different even if the subject is the same.

In order to read a person well, you must enter into very specific brain states. That is not conjecture, it is fact. The slowest brain wave state is Delta and since you are asleep, you won't be doing readings or anything else in that state.

The next state is Theta and it is the desired state though it takes a lot, and I mean a lot, of practice to maintain that state and to execute it at will. In theta a person sees what are called hypnogogic imagery and in fact, theta is called the hypnogogic state. This imagery tends to be what is called archetypes or culturally shared images representing similar things to similar people. I'll get back to that.

The next state is Alpha which is the creative state. One of the problems with Alpha is your imagination runs wild and hence, you can make up a really good story.

The final state is Beta which is your analytical state. To enter Beta, all you have to do is start counting. Any math will cause you to enter Beta. I have been so tired on other jobs that I have actually started doing the multiplication tables to stay awake. I know most of you have no idea what that is as you don't know of a time before calculators when people did math in their heads.

Remember the Theta state I was talking about and that it took time to reach. Theta can be reached only in a very calm state of mind and body. Although I can enter into Theta in the middle of a carnival midway, it will take more time than if I can prepare to do it. Hence, if you have an appointment, I have the time to create a calm situation and prepare myself for the reading. Not only that but since I do work with various spirits, I have time to call them in and they have time to get information and contact spirits that are close to you. It also allows the spirits close to you to get permission, if possible, to manifest and communicate. Then when you arrive, we can get down to business and you get more information than if you just walk in the door unannounced.

Now for what I mean about archetypes being images experienced by people of similar backgrounds and cultures. An archetype is a global image but it is specific to the person. Thus, if the person reading you has a very different background and culture than you do, they may misinterpret the archetype. For example, in the USA, money is green. It is even called greenbacks. But very few countries in Latin America have any money that is green. In our culture, green means sick. He turned green means he became really nauseous. In Latin America, green is healthy because the jungle and unrestrained plant growth is a sign of health. So, if the archetype belongs to the person getting the reading and they are Latino and the psychic is not and the psychic sees green, they will interpret it as meaning illness and/or money where as it would mean health to the party being read. Fortunately for me, I get little tags telling me who the archetypical image is for and I will say that it is for you to interpret as it is your image I am seeing.

Why do I use cards? The Tarot was developed from a European archetypical set of images. Hence, I use the cards to provide the archetypical image so I can go into more depth with the image. It is like trying to solve a mathematical problem without the formula. The cards give me the formula and I can solve the problem and figure out what to do with the solution while someone else is trying to do the math.

I used to watch the old infomercials and the “psychic” would interpret the card while I would be sitting there thinking of everything else associated in the reading with that card. Invariably, the person being read would chime in and give the “psychic' the information I had just come up with. It was a fun exercise.

This need to enter into a specific brain wave state is also why I ask you to pay in advance. After a good period of time in Theta, you do not want me counting anything. My brain refuses to snap back to Beta as fast as it did when I was young. One poor man was trying to buy some minerals after a reading and finally had to make the change himself. I was a total loss. I think I had started counting a half dozen times before he realized either I was dumbest person he ever met or something was wrong with me. I explained the Theta problem and he counted out his own change. If you remain in Theta for a long period of time, it is like trying to wake up out a deep sleep. It just doesn't happen fast.

Transitioning from Alpha to Beta is fast and can be done instantly. You know how fast you dropped out of that daydream when the teacher called your name? You probably didn't know where you were, but dang, you were wide awake.

Transitioning from Theta to Alpha is quick and seamless but you are not completely with it. Theta is the state just before you slip off to sleep in which you will agree to anything if people will just leave you alone and let you drift off to never-never land. However, if you have made it to the border of Delta, you are groggy, compliant and disorientated. Not only that, but if you are forced to enter the Beta state rapidly, you will usually have a headache and some nausea. So, it's a good idea not to force the psychic into total awareness as they are not going be in a good mood.

Spirits are a whole other world, literally. Most people think their loved ones and guides can just pop in any time they want. One thing I learned early was there is a spiritual hierarchy and everyone has a boss and boundaries. I found that out because being the contrary little critter I am, I was always breaking the rules. The more energetically advanced the entity, the harder it is to manifest in this super slow dimension. Few people can become mediums because their bodies simply are not able to house a spirit that is, for lack of another word, vibrating at a high level. A few people's bodies are “vibrating” at a high level to begin with and hence for a period time can house the spirit's essence but not without some damage. A person's brain has to operate at a really fast speed or be burned out to allow a spirit to communicate with them for a long period of time. Most people can get a word or a blurry image. A very few get the whole paragraph and picture. I am one of those few because my brain is documented to work really fast. My problem is slowing down enough to rest my mind. However, you will often hear me say to slow down.

Spirits will actually communicate so fast all you hear is a high pitched drone like a mosquito buzzing you. At best, their communication sounds like an auctioneer and keeping track of what they are saying is a feat of mental gymnastics. Search for a video of an old tobacco auctioneer and see if you can understand anything they are saying. I know because my father did those auctions when he was young and when he wanted to be really annoying, he would use that speech rhythm while giving you orders and expect you to actually understand and follow them.

To me, most spirits manifest in black and white, not color. That is probably a defense mechanism on my part so I don't mistake a spirit for a 'real' person and wind up in the looney bin for talking to non-existent people. I do see animal spirits in full color.

Back to the rules and hierarchy because I used to think the spirit world was a bureaucracy of the highest order created by something with extreme obsessive compulsive disorder. Now I know that because everything is energy, it often takes quite a few spirits to manage to transcend the natural energetic boundaries between their levels and our world. Hence, although you may receive communication from someone directly after their death, it is with the help of other spirits and permission with a good reason to do so but the longer that person is in the other realm, the harder it becomes. You also have to be spiritually in sync with the person to receive communications. So, if they are blue and you are blue, it works easily but if they are red and you are blue, it doesn’t work at all well. However, a medium like me can communicate because we are not directly communicating with your particular spirit but with your spirit through our spirits who are acting as interpreters. Hence I often have someone ask why their loved one won't give them an answer and I have to say because they are not permitted to do that. My spirits have been known to twist the edicts better than a constitutional lawyer, but even they have their limits. Some things you just aren't allowed to know in this state.

Enjoy your reading and remember that the purpose of a psychic reading is not to carve in stone your choices and life path but to give you the information you need to make the best choices for you at this time in your life. It's always good to know the bus is going to hit you a 2 PM on Tuesday at the corner of Main and 3^rd Avenue because now you can decide whether to be there at 2 PM or to stay home and have a nice cup of coffee and a Danish.

Forecast for Dec 2015

I am not posting this on my web page because it is the end of December my new page starts in 2016 but here is everything you need to know about the end of December Astrologically.

Dec. 20. Between 5:01 PM and 7:13 PM, be very careful of anything that could start a fire. Aries will finds himself feeling confused and suffers from brain fog. Aries, you might want to avoid operating heavy equipment. Virgo and Scorpio are easily irritated and very irritating. Temper tantrums will occur if you try to push either sign to do anything fast in this period. Libra is annoyed at everything and everyone and the usual stomping tantrum may cause an accident.

Dec. 21. The Winter Solstice is at 11:48 PM when the Sun enters Capricorn. An elder can succeed in hurting everyone's feelings. By nightfall, change is on the wind.

Dec. 22. Between 9:26 AM and 9:31 PM EST, Taurus is having trouble balancing the budget and there is a possibility of a lost purse or wallet. Keep your possessions close today. Sagittarius and Libra are very irritating and will encourage you to give more than you can afford. Scorpio is sneaky and whatever you do, don't regift something belonging to them. You may not live to regret it.

Dec. 24. If your shopping isn't done by 3:04 PM EST, throw in the towel. I mean it. Anything bought after that time is a bad idea, particularly communications products. Gemini is totally scatter brained, even more than usual. Capricorn is depressed and Scorpio is aggravating. Sagittarius is in a foul mood. So, settle down and enjoy a movie with the headphones on. Apply eggnog liberally.

Dec. 25. Fortunately the short tempers and bad feelings end at 12:27 AM. The Moon is Full at 3CANCER20, 6:12 AM. People will be family orientated, weepy and crabby. Everyone is walking on egg shells and austerity prevails. When they say you shouldn't have don't be surprised if they return the gift tomorrow. Uranus, the planet of sudden upsets and surprises, goes direct at 10:53 PM and starts picking up speed to bring surprises, usually not of the nice variety.

Dec. 26. Kwanza begins. At 10:36 PM things with home, hearth and family can start to go wrong. Cancer is miffed because no one is complimenting their decorations, food and helpfulness. Probably because everyone is feeling smothered. Aquarius and Sagittarius have pretty much had it with the whole peace on earth and goodwill thing so don't push them. Capricorn is really in a foul mood and probably won't speak to anyone until after 5:31 AM tomorrow when the void of course ends.

Dec. 29. Leo is really having a tantrum between 12:38 PM and 1:58 PM. Anything you say will insult them. Everyone will feel a little out of sorts and confused. Headaches abound so if you suffer from migraines, do not ignore the first symptoms. Pisces and Capricorn are confused, irritating and best left alone until this passes. Aquarius is trying to figure out what is going on, as usual. Aquarius doesn't have clue about others' feelings. Electrical fires start under this aspect.

Dec. 30. Venus enters Sagittarius at 2:16 AM. After all the drama, you wake up to a clean, clear slate and maybe snow. Things lighten up and become more playful. This period makes you feel more young at heart but if you are trapped indoors you are going be chomping at the bit to get out and do something. Take it slow and easy or wear a cast later.

Dec. 31. New Years Eve finds people cautiously optimistic. Parties are a little subdued. Everyone is remembering those they have lost this year.

And so ends 2015, not with a bang but a whimper.

Technology is a wonderful and amazing thing. It could lift the world from poverty, move food and other goods at the blink of an eye from where there is excess to those that need them. It could speed curing diseases to unimaginable short times just by allowing scientists to communicate with each other and share ideas and experiments. It could allow us to take a tour of a far off and exotic place on our lunch break without leaving our chair or stepper. I might be more inclined to get on my treadmill if I was taking a walking tour of the Great Pyramid. Just imagine for a moment a world without boundaries, friends all over the world talking to you via the Internet, instant translations of any document you want to read, plenty of food, wearing a Sari from India, boots from Italy, Jewelry from Nepal and a burka to protect you from the sun to work without anyone thinking any the less of you while you stop to pickup lunch at a Mexican Taco Stand and get back on clean public transportation to make it to your job that you love going to because you have that midnight conference with China and Australian on how to save the bees and transport healing honey from New Zealand to Finland to make Mead that is a health drink without a single thought that includes FEAR or HATE.

Yes, technology could have created that world, right now, in your backyard but it didn't. You see, technology can't really create anything. It is a tool in the hands of those with the power and unfortunately some people are easy to manipulate into doing the dirty work for others.

Let me explain how we arrived where we are today, mourning the loss of good people who just wanted to live their lives in peace and enjoyment at the hands of a few mentally ill and, yes, deficient men. It started a long time ago with a psychopath named Abraham. He was a greedy, lazy bastard who wanted a place in history like the great men who had come before him and asked only that the tenets of their method of enlightenment be remembered providing they continued to work and be of value.

You see, prior to that moment if you wanted to be a spiritual, enlightened person leading a happy life with friends and family and food and shelter, you worked your little ass off learning, practicing and mucking around in the dirt to grow food and at the end of the day, you came home to loving group of people and enjoyed the fruits of your and everyone's labor and study over a good meal and great conversation. You looked forward to visitors with new information to help you find peace and happiness by working, meditating and building your home. You shared with your neighbors no matter who they were or where they came from because you knew we were all in this together and that whether you succeeded or failed was YOUR personal mission and responsibility.

Ah, but Abraham decided some God had chosen him and his relatives and if they just made everyone else obey their rules or he would have them killed in the name of God, he could have EVERYTHING that he could see or from horizon to horizon, and everyone else would get their reward for helping him as soon as they died. Now, mind you, their living relatives wouldn't be sharing in 13 virgins because rewards were only delivered to the DEAD. But it was an easy path to take. There was no more meditating, learning, or standing in odd positions. Heck, you didn't even have to be able to read. The Priests would read the HOLY BOOK to you and tell you what to do, all you had to do was pray to Abraham, I mean his God and give up your hard earned food and anything else God needed. Now if Abraham, I mean his God, deemed you worthy, you would get what you prayed for and of course, had delivered the proper amount of sacrifice for to the Priest. If you didn't get what you prayed for, well, YOU and your animal nature were the problem. YOU didn't pray right. YOU didn't tithe enough. YOU weren't holy enough, pure enough, good enough BUT we can fix that. All you have to do is deliver more and more of your worldly goods to the Priests that represent Abraham, I mean God. Hey, everyone needs some accountants and inventory people to keep track of the food and gold and minerals and chairs and tables and God needs those accountants, I mean Priests, because apparently omnipotence doesn't extend to knowing how much you put in the collection plate, just that errant thought you had after too much beer that your same sex cousin was looking kind of attractive and now you are going to Hell.

Yes, it is just that silly when you take a step back and look at it. What is Judaism, Christianity and Islam killing each over for centuries? Boiled down into one sentence it is whether you are judged by GOD before or after you die. Yup, it is that simple. And who is profiting from this? That would be the people who interpret the religious texts, sell the religious trinkets and make the weapons to kill each other with better and better.

And then came technology. I know you thought it would be money. Hey, money is the devil's lucre. Lucre, Lucifer, do you see the origin of the word? No, that is not the problem.

The problem is people are innately good. Yes, you read that right. People are innately good. They just want enough to eat, shelter, a few toys, something to do they really like doing and someone to love and share their life with. That's all. That's the problem. No one ever managed to build a crystal cathedral or buy a new jet with a bunch of happy people sitting around a good meal having an intelligent conversation. All these mega-churches at the beck and call of a single man or woman couldn't exist unless they had a whole army of priests, who tended to be rebellious little critters, to gather money from the peasants and bring it back to the Vatican.

Now mind you, I don't begrudge them managing to create a better system of fleecing the peasants. It beats waiting for someone to get sick or fall in love with the wrong person to get dinner delivered as payment but that system did keep us thin and healthy and far more than that, we, the local shaman, witch, healer, wise one actually had to produce results rather than leaving it up to a capricious God who couldn't lose or fail. It made us and our successors a bit better at what we did with each generation.

However, it was technology that created the monster we now fear as it was used to create the Mega-churches. Now the insane message of one man.... and CAN anyone out there who is reasonable debate the fact that people like Robertson are insane... I mean demonic cooties from thrift store clothing?? …. please.... can reach not the village idiot but millions of idiots all over the world.

There are people who do not want responsibility for even picking out their clothes in the morning because they are LAZY. So hey, some guy who says you don't have to worry about your hair, your figure or anything because you can now cover it from head to toe with black looking like a waddling penis to satisfy the homosexual urges of a bunch of men who will tell you based on the opinion of one man, I mean God, what and how to fix dinner, where you can walk and when you can speak and that's just the Catholic Church. Surprise! Bet you didn't see that one coming! Now that I have inserted that image in your brain, it won't leave because once again, they are all descended from the greedy ambition of one man who convinced a lot of people to kill for him and his family so they could live in luxury and of course, have all the women and young boys, and YOU could get your reward as soon as you died for them, I mean God.

The problem of technology is this greedy, hateful and murderous lifestyle is available to anyone who can construct a web page or open an account on the social media and get a thousand or more people to click to follow them. Yea technology! If you have the insane hatred of pencils, you can find a bunch more people in the entire world that agree with you and will sell everything they own to travel to your little Holy piece of desert to kill everyone who uses an eraser, destroy all pencils and then move on to the rest of the world to cleanse it of graphite so that only the Holy Dip Pens can exist with their harem of virgins or young boys. You can't spend all your time sharpening pencils. The village idiot is now able to create entire countries of idiots like them and WE are bleeding because of it.

The problem is NOT refugees. The problem is HATE, GREED and FAME. Yes, fame. We all can't be beautiful people because we aren't in charge of what beautiful is. We have that told to us. And those who can't be those beautiful people that others worship, want their NAME in the history books. They don't particularly want their deeds to be written down but they want you to remember their names and for that they are willing to kill any number of people or at least, get a bunch of village idiots to do it for them while they relax in their safe little hovels bent over a keyboard eating their favorite food quoting God. Meanwhile, good people bleed and die for nothing but someone to get a footnote in history.

We don't remember Confucius for how many Taoists he killed (because he didn't kill any) and the way he said to dress (because he didn't come up fashion statements) but for what he said and the practical ideas that allowed people to live better. We don't remember Buddha for a Holy War but for the ways he came up with to speed our enlightenment and bring peace. We don't remember the poetry of Rumi for his infinite praise of an invisible friend but for his love of life and a woman. But we remember Abraham, David, Solomon, Muhammad, John the Baptist, the Popes, the Puritans, the insert names, for the number of people killed and oppressed and, civilizations, works of art, cities destroyed in the name of GOD.

Friends, it is time to take back our planet. We are the stewards of this place. We are responsible for our lives and the lives of other beings on this planet. We deserve to eat, have a roof over our heads, love and enjoy our lives. We do not deserve to die so another person can have more, more and more power and hate and money and toys. It is time for a revolution. It is time to love. It is time to enjoy not infinite boring sameness but to celebrate the differences in each other. It is time to learn in peace. It is time to progress and cease to allow others to tell us someone has to suffer and die so their name can go down in history as a great representative of an invisible God. It is time to take back responsibility for our lives, our souls and our creativity. It is time to stop bleeding and dying for ideas and insane people. It is time to be proud of ourselves not our title to some religion. It is time to say not I am a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Pagan but I am Joe or Amy, not a color or a lifestyle, but a person and that is good enough. It is time to isolate the insane hateful people and get them some treatment. We really do have pills for this illness. No one is born hating the baby in the next crib. That is something that has to be taught through pain and suffering.

There is a site with the pictures of 18 what they consider to be evil men, as adults and as children. I disagree with several of their choices but the ones I think we can all agree upon, you will see a child whose spirit is already broken, no smile, eyes blank or downcast. You will see resignation to do whatever they have to in order to avoid the next beating whether it is physical or mental and a resolve to take revenge on someone for their current state. THIS HAS TO STOP.

My uncle had a farm and 18 children not so much from desire but because there was no birth control and he loved his wife more than you can probably imagine. From the day each child was capable of understanding what was happening, they found a way to make themselves useful not because of some God because of the innate human desire to be helpful to others. The kid who was a whiz at repairing engines and farm equipment wasn't valued over the one that plowed a straight line or planted an evenly spaced row of corn and ironed shirts best. Each person had a talent that was needed, even the handicapped son that painted the house and buildings in pretty designs because that was all he really could do. He was mourned equally when he died at 16. They didn't hate their more prosperous neighbors and when something happened like the barn roof collapsing, they helped their neighbors rebuild it not because of God telling them to but because it was the thing to do in a community where everyone depended on each other. They didn't hate anyone.

My aunt and most of her children have never left the little area of the country they were born and grew up in. Imagine my surprise when I found my letters about the, to me, mundane things of living in different places and countries were read over and over as entertainment and wonder. They wanted me to visit so I could tell them about these other people and places. They didn't hate them. In fact they would have been beside themselves if I could bring a Mexican with me so they could meet one. Now they have the Internet.

Unfortunately, so does the fearful, beaten down Nazi down the street. I would say to go give him a hug but he has too many guns and explosives for it be safe. And then I would ask you, who does him having that arsenal profit? You and I didn't get a single thing from it, so who did? Who is really winning, friends? It isn't us. We are the ones bleeding, dying, suffering, watching our babies and parents waste away from a curable diseases. We aren't winning. We aren't even surviving. We deserve more, not because some God tells us or we serve his representatives, but because we are living, breathing, intelligent creatures that are capable of infinite love and we are each BEAUTIFUL in very, very different ways.

Take back the planet! Please.

The Perfect Moment

The Perfect Moment.

We've all heard of the Perfect Storm, that moment when against all odds all the factors needed to create the ultimate storm happen and a super storm is born to destroy everything.

Have you ever heard of the Perfect Moment?

For most people it happens when you are sitting outside, relaxing with not a care in your world and suddenly, there it is. You can't describe it but you know you are in the right place at the perfect time, doing and being exactly what you were meant to be. You are alone in this Perfect Moment and then the electric bill needs to be paid.... and you may try to return to the moment but it is gone forever, leaving you with a longing you just can't describe and a soul deep sadness.

I had a memory of that moment the other day reading Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. I know that is an odd place to have the Perfect Moment but I realized he was trying to describe with his Manifesto the Perfect Moment.

Lucky for me, I experienced or had it shown to me, this perfect moment, in a dream that has just continued to haunt me for over 20 years. It is only now that I know I was seeing my and your past and that I now know what you are seeking everywhere but the right place and that you will probably never find.

First let me go back almost 40 years when a psychic reader wanted to trade a reading for an astrological chart. She gave me a reading while I calculated the chart. Yes Virginia, we didn't have computers back then and I survived being squished by dinosaurs. She was looking at her cards very perplexed so I asked her what was wrong. She answered that I had no real connection to my parents, that they were just acquaintances that agreed to get me to adulthood in this life. I told her she was absolutely right. I had no real connection to these two people and never did and neither did they really have one to me. We were just stuck in the same place at the same time.

Now fast forward a bit to the most detailed dream I ever had and remember, what's happened before, is happening now and will happen again.

I am in a strange car that is sort like a golf cart driving down a silver road in a desert. The car is totally enclosed with glass and has no engine compartment. I actually think the method of propulsion is under the car. It makes no noise and it has no steering wheel. On the front bench seat are my parents who are nothing more than people going to the same place. Next to me is my aunt who is a friend of theirs and mine. I have a small tapestry woven bag on my lap and I am wearing a simple shift dress and sandals. Everyone is dressed simply. My aunt has a large woven bag on the floor in front of her full of things she has made. The car is nice and cool though the temperature outside must be really hot. I see the heat shimmering off the desert sand.

We take a turn off the road and suddenly I am looking at a gigantic black pyramid. It is bigger than anything you can imagine and we are driving into the center bottom of it. Once we enter the pyramid, the glass that was the doors and windows, disappears and the temperature is hotter. It is twilight in this area and the little car pulls into a parking space between other identical cars. I had the impression that no one owned the vehicles. You simply took one when you needed to travel.

We got out and I looked around. The bottom floor was huge and all sorts of goods were being sorted and moved to the upper floors. This was the supply area. The man that was my father was complaining he didn't get a outside room because they weren't staying that long. My aunt raced over to one of the supply tables and placed her bag on it for them to sort and distribute. She was excited at the prospect of shopping on the next floor, the music that night, the exotic foods and staying in this place for a while. My parents were moving on the next morning.

We took an open elevator to the next floor. You stepped out of the elevator in any direction onto glass and walked over to the stone floors around it. That way everyone could see everyone in and out of the elevator. It was truly amazing and gorgeous. This floor was shopping and people had tables of merchandise and food and everything you could possibly need laid out. One man was complimenting a woman on what she had done with the wool he had brought and she was telling another woman how this bag she had woven of the wool was perfect for what she needed to carry produce in to the upper floors. They were all happy and woman went back to her weaving loom and the man said goodbye to return to his city and flock of animals. I didn't realize at the time what had seemed so odd, but now I remember, no one exchanged money. There was no money.

I had come to this pyramid to work and I continued to the 5^th floor where I was met by a bubbly little woman who took me to my compartments and she hoped I was happy with what her daughter had done. She was talking a mile a minute absolutely ecstatic about my job, the way she was organizing the clients and her daughters habitat program. I entered what could be called really minimalist space. Everything was stone except for the side which was black glass, looking out on the desert. It was absolutely beautiful. I had a south facing space so my plants would grow well and she was explaining how the gardeners had mixed the proper soil in the bin next to the window and left it ready for planting. There were other plants some of which I recognized as healing herbs and some I have never seen before in the stone planters around the room. There was even a wall fountain of water for moisture in another space that had a polished stone slab on it that was where my clients would lie. I realized I was a healer as I opened the little bag I carried in with crystals and seeds in it. Musical instruments had been provided for me in the next room and sat ready to use with some large crystals. I had brought no clothing, shoes, not even a change of panties because I would go downstairs and get everything I needed before I retired for the night. She was telling me how much the chefs looked forward to my tasting their dishes and how they had made a special dessert for everyone to celebrate me joining their city.

I have in my life begun many new jobs, some perfect for me and some not so nice, but all of them with extreme anxiety and diarrhea. I was perfectly calm. This was where I belonged, doing what I did best and with no concerns about paying the rent because there was no rent. This little perky monster was absolutely in ecstasy with her system for scheduling my clients and so proud of her daughter's creation of my living space. A lizard ran across the ceiling and grabbed drink off the wall of water and she explained they came in to keep the bugs off my plants. I knew that in exchange I would heal any of their injuries and was looking forward to having dinner and planting my seeds that night.

Everyone was doing what they did best and loved to do. The music was already starting downstairs and it turned out her cousin made the string instruments and a friend made the strings and didn't the musician just bring out the best qualities in what they made?

That is the society Karl Marx was trying so desperately and inadequately to describe. That is the Perfect Moment that is a whole life time. There was no money, no competition, no stress. There was cooperation and enjoyment in the achievements of others and your contribution to them. There was nothing except for what you brought to that world.

On another side that I remember, everyone was also a vegetarian. There was no meat in exchange. Animals were treated just like humans. People greeted them and spoke to them and some of them lived with humans or went their way. There would be no charge for my services and when someone found a new herb or crystal, they would bring it to me to be used in my work, not as an exchange of services but because that was what was best for everyone and everything.

That was the Perfect Lifetime. It is what you are searching for. I don't know if it can ever happen again because something or someone tampered with our world and made it what it is. They are still ruining it.

Do bad decisions really make you a bad person?

Blaming people for bad decisions or choices is all the rage of the Rightwing and the New Age Movement. After all, you attract everything that happens to you. You are responsible for everything that happens to you.

However, the actual process of making decisions can be flawed and that little fact is overlooked. You simply may not have all the facts or information to make what could be called an informed decision, but that assumes you are sitting here, all nice and calm sipping your coffee or tea and have access to the Internet to check your facts. There are four factors that can really mess with your decisions that you probably have never even thought about and are lurking around your brain right this moment waiting to pounce on you.

I am going to explain them in no particular order as they are all equally nasty little problems.

Many decisions are made in anger. Anger has a way of reducing you to reacting to a situation the way you learned to from your parents before they knew you could even understand them. Anger is well defined by the old adage, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Most people are not in touch enough with their feelings to understand when anger is being misdirected, much like the man who beats his wife because his boss reamed him out or the person who breaks things and then has to fix them or buy new ones. Anger tends to be the final expression of fear and helplessness. Anger is the man who marries a woman half his age because he is upset with his previous wife remarrying and discovers he not only has nothing in common with her but just lost half of everything he has worked his life to get. See, another of those bad decisions that he will shake his head and have no explanation for because after all, he is a captain of industry. Anger is eating a gallon of ice cream because the boss yelled at you and then needing new clothes because you keep gaining weight which puts you in so much debt you can't meet the bills or look for another job, because now the world says you are fat, lazy slob.

Other decisions are made in fear of something. Fear has a way of producing tunnel vision and even though there are perfectly legitimate options sitting in front of you, you can't see them. All you see is the biggest opening to escape the fear. Fear is when you have more bills than money and start borrowing from one source to pay the second which you will borrow from next month to pay the second and being so paralyzed that you never resolve the real problem. Fear is put a bandage on it so you can't see the problem or solution and you'll deal with it next month. Unfortunately, fear keeps getting bigger and so does the problem and of course, when someone comes along and looks at it from that nice calm perspective you have no answer for why you made such lousy decisions and are now in way over your head. Fear is the poor couple I worked their engagement party who really weren't in love with each other, had been pushed into dating since Middle School because they were perfect for each other and now had families that had spent a small fortune on the upcoming wedding that they desperately didn't want to go through with but were afraid to say anything. That is how you can't explain why you are divorcing five years later when you now hate each other.

Panic is fear on Meth. Panic is what causes you to jump off a cliff and forget the one thing you pretty much figured out at birth: gravity. More relationships have begun in panic and ended nastily a few days later than you can imagine. This is how you wind up in the wrong profession, the wrong job, the wrong home, the wrong anything you can imagine and then can't figure out how because no one wants to admit fear or panic drove them off the cliff so you just hang in there for the rest of your miserable life. I spent a couple of days at a company that had more rules than you can imagine about what one could and could not have at their desk. You could not have any liquids, not even bottled water, nothing breakable, no pictures, no plants, nothing. I think they were moving to outlawing papers though they were at that time necessary to the work of accounting. The reasoning was always the worst case of the water shorting out the adding machine, ruining the receipts, cutting yourself on broken glass and so forth. The real problem was everyone would panic the moment the boss opened his office door and become clumsy in a blind panic. So everyone got to work in conditions that were awful because of this person and thankfully I was a temp but for them, the pay was good, the place was close to home and a million other justifications for this state of affairs. The truth was they were afraid to quit.

The last one is perhaps the most common cause of really bad life decisions on a daily and hourly basis. It is pain. Yes, it is just plain old pain and exhaustion. It is the headache that has you going through the drive through every day rather than eating a healthy dinner that you just can't face cooking. The backache that has you forgoing housework and becoming more and more of a recluse because of the mess. It is the acid reflux that has you dropping out of class because you double over every time the professor enters the room. It is an exhaustion that keeps you from doing anything you want to and finally giving up on life. Then one day you fall and call emergency services and they try to dig you out of the mess and you wind up trying to explain to a social worker how this happened. It seems pretty silly to say, “I had a headache from the stress at work and started getting dinner at the drive through, gained 100 pounds which made me ache all over and I couldn't do any housework and it just got worse as I got sicker,” because the first thing they are going to say is, “why didn't you go on a diet and join a gym or get another job?” I know it was because the headache just wore you out and you didn't have enough energy to do that but asking for help, well then we are back to explaining to the JUDGES why you didn't take some pills and soldier on rather than driving home with a bag of food designed to kill you, putting your feet up and trying to get enough rest to make it to work the next day. All you could see is you needed that job even if, and somehow you didn't see this part; it kills you. The prime motivation with pain as a companion to any decision is reducing the pain. Need new shoes; see if you can get away with loafers because your head hurts. Need new clothes; try to get away with sweats because your back hurts. Chop your hair off because it is too hard to wash and blow dry it. Everything is based not on dressing for success and getting that promotion but to eliminate some of the pain. BUT you aren't living up to your potential! No, you are living down to your survival.

Yes, it is easy to make good decisions if these four little things don't insert themselves between you and all those choices to where your decision is based not on the problem but these things. And this is why people make bad decisions when the good decision seems so obvious to the Judge Parties. So sip your coffee or tea and laugh and blame but I can guarantee, those four demons will eventually nail you.

It is easy to change your life, when you have a solid foundation to fall back on if something goes wrong but when every aspect of your life and those looking to you for support depends on YOU maintaining the support structure bad decisions will follow because the four horsemen of the bad decisions are galloping toward you and you can see them.

Pass the Koolaid, the UFO will be by soon to rapture you.

I DO NOT BELIEVE IT!

The last time I saw this propaganda s**t was in 1956 in a Catholic Sunday School passed out to the poor Mexicans and their kids. It was used throughout Latin America to keep the poor peasants in their place.

Let me give you the gist of it.

The poor man works for El Patron (the rich guy that pays him too little to feed his family) and can't make enough money doing his job six days a week to feed his family. The poor wife is at home with a load of kids because the CHURCH won't allow birth control but that's not in the story. So he roots through the GARBAGE every day to find enough food to feed them. One day El Patron sees him rooting in the garbage and ignores him just like he always does. Next day he mysteriously finds a bag of clean food so he no longer has to dig in the garbage. Then something happens to El Patron and the food stops coming. The poor guy is too stupid to figure out the food must be coming from El Patron until he approaches the widow for more money. She is so glad to finally find the last person her wonderful cheap ass husband was giving the left overs to that she is beside herself but doesn't give him a raise. Next day the son delivers the food to the poor guy. (Notice it is never the daughter because women are useless baggage for screwing and incubating boy babies in this society.) After a couple of days, he finds out the reason El Patron never acknowledged him is he was either hard of hearing, unable to talk without stuttering or almost blind like the son.

The moral of the story is you shouldn't judge others because you at least have your health and you don't now what they are going through.

Bulls**t. El Patron with his compound, plenty of money and big car can't afford hearing aides, glasses and a speech therapist??????????? No the Moral of the Story is: Shut Up Peasant and take whatever the Rich guy decides to give you out of his garbage. Be glad you have a job and someone's garbage can to rummage through to keep your family from starving.

The OTHER version was in the math books.

Now if Juan finds 5 apples and is running home to give them to his mother, father, sister and little brother and he runs into the priest, who he gives one to and is then blessed him, how many apples does he have. He has four apples and though he has nothing to eat, he is blessed. He is also going to bed hungry because your God lets children starve.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE I SAW THIS S**T LAST NIGHT?

It was in the crap being passed out over the Internet to the FAITHFUL Evangelic Fundamentalist Christians and they were lapping it up like the flavored s**t it is.

Someone give them the Koolaide so they can get to the UFO, I mean rapture. They are too stupid to survive.

Sixty years and now the same propaganda is being passed out to PEOPLE in MY COUNTRY. We are now as third world nation being prepared to serve the Religious Rich Masters while we work ourselves to the bone to root in the dump for food while they live in their multibillion dollar compounds in the lap of luxury and if we are so very, very lucky we might get a job that doesn't pay enough to feed us opening the gates to their heaven. Oh, yes, the poor guy is always the guy opening the gate for El Patron because the gate or the yard is as far as he is every getting. Did you happen to notice the analogy to dying and going to heaven. No?? Here have some Koolaid.

Public Speaking or a Root Canal without Anesthesia

The Truth About Public Speaking

Every time there is an event, there is a small war over the speaker NOT doing something from perceived snubs to unreasonable demands and very, very seldom do you hear from the speaker about what is going on. Since I no longer work that circuit and am not trying to get jobs I can tell you the truth. It look glamorous but it is no fun, at least in the USA.

Most of the time, the venue that has hired or invited you to speak is more than anxious to have everything go off well for them, the speaker, their and maybe your staff (I say maybe because that is usually one friend or spouse), and the audience. Unfortunately, for you, the audience, it really is in that order so take note. I probably should put the your (the speaker's) staff in quarantine because they really hate to have a second person they have to deal with or bully or may act as a witness.

You see, it is really easy to bully the speaker. If you don't show up on stage, it is your fault even if they have you tied up in the back room. If you are late going on stage it is your fault. If you don't answer questions even though they have forbidden it, it is your fault. Whatever happens, except everything going off flawlessly, is going to be your fault and if you don't cooperate or agree with the blame, well, they are in control of whether everyone in the hiring part of speakers even bothers to consider you for another job. Speakers can be canceled and substituted at the last moment and as usual, it is the speakers fault.

Believe it or not, technical equipment like microphones and computers are not in the speakers control. We don't drag an entire sound system or computer display around. We might have the Powerpoint presentation on our laptop but the screen and interface are not ours. When faced with a $29.99 karaoke on sale at the El Cheapo outlet for a sound system in a huge auditorium, you can be assured the people in the back row can't hear anything or understand anything and there is nothing the speaker can do about it. They will be blamed for poor diction and not projecting. This is also why some speakers that use computer generated graphics for their speeches tend to get a little crazy when they arrive for an engagement and demand over the top checks of equipment. They have already been burned. One speaker told me the equipment she was shown and checked out before her lecture was pulled and given to a bigger name speaker at the event and she found herself with equipment she had never seen or operated when she was let into the room minutes before her lecture. Everyone in management had disappeared, too. Once again, it was all her fault. Personally, I won't touch anything but a microphone and good old paper handouts for that very reason. I have been sabotaged by the very people who hired me and now they have very little room to do it.

The next biggest thing is the speaker wouldn't answer questions. That is 100% under the control of the people who book you and 90% of them have nixed questions. You see, they want you and your audience out of that room so they can bring the next paying group in for the next speaker or the clean-up crew. These rooms rent by the hour. If there is no next speaker, check to see if there is an expensive reception or meal you could have bought a ticket for because there is no reason to attend that if you get a free interaction with the speaker at the lecture and the powers that be know that. See the speaker leaving with that little group of people and feeling left out? That group of people are usually the friends and backers of the people who hired them and they have a iron grip on the speaker. If you are speaking as part of as show, the people running the thing do not want a large number of people congregating in the show hall and blocking the entrance to the booths that have paid a pretty penny to be there and you can be assured, will be complaining if that happens. You, as a speaker, are competition to the booths.

Unless the setup is very unprofessional, every moment of the speaker's time is accounted for and booked from the moment they enter the venue, which is why most of us run for the bathroom to start with. It is the last time we will have a free moment.

Speaking is stressful and the degree of stress depends on the person. I have seen what should have been professional actors with loads of experience shaking like leaves before a minor speaking engagement that was following a script and introducing the other speakers. It does make me wonder why they chose this profession. I can't see any degree of fame or adoration being worth puking my guts out for a half hour before uttering a half dozen sentences. I have zero stress speaking or acting. I happen to love the stage and I am a rare minority. Keep that in mind. A lot of speakers are nervous wrecks by the time they get off the stage. Watch for the ones really smiling broadly. They are usually five seconds from running, throwing up or passing out. Always remember that writers are usually bad speakers. That is why they write.

Try to look at it from the speaker's view, physically. Here is one person looking at dozens of people trying to get their attention and they are trying to not trip over their own feet and land face down getting off the stage and out the door. Yup, looks a little different from that view. The equally ugly part is height. You do this too, so don't deny it. People tend to see the people who are their height or greater. If you are in a wheelchair, scooter or just plain short like I am, people look right over the top of your head and don't see you. That is the second biggest reason you get ignored. The biggest is the speaker has been given a list of people they are supposed to recognize and fawn over in the audience who happen to the backers for the event or potential money people. Now we are talking stress. The speaker probably has seen this person for a second tops or been given a description like they are wearing a blue shirt, that helps, and in addition to remembering your speech, gauging the audience reaction for where to go, where to pause and where to expand, not tripping over your own feet, choking on water or going dry mouth, you now have to play salesperson to people unknown as soon as you finish speaking and usually patiently answer truly idiotic questions for someone with more money that brains. It is just so much fun that the speaker is in a real good mood.

So dear audience try to remember that 90% of the problems when you attend an event lay at the feet of the organizers and it is their rules. Very seldom does a speaker, unless you are talking the big guys, get any input at all into what will happen at the lecture. You can divide the rest of the blame between the audience and the speaker.

There are things a speaker truly loves in an audience: NOT. Number one is the person who has decided to spend 10 minutes in the lecture and has another appointment they must get to so they take the front middle seat where they cause as much disruption as possible exiting. Every moment of a lecture is planned and when the audience disrupts the lecture, something has to go out of it. Then there is the hard of hearing person who loves to sit in the back row and complain about not being able to hear. I have actually had people do that and refuse to take a seat in the front row when offered. After all, the lecture revolves around them and their disability. You aren't getting any sympathy because I can't hear diddly squat and I pay for the front seat knowing that. Then there is the always late crew that either have paid for the front row or will actually drag a chair through the entire audience to get to the middle of the front row and don't you dare utter a word because most of the time they are disabled. Keep in mind, they could have gotten there early and made arrangements before you have a sympathy attack. There is always at least one person in the audience who wants to be the center of attention and the speaker has to deal with it because the management is going to disappear right then and that person has a whole crew supporting their bid for attention. That pretty much leaves 99% of the audience as unhappy spectators in this little game. They will complain and it will be the speaker's fault for not being able to deal with it.

Things look a lot difference from this side of the microphone, don't they. Now put the cherry on this sundae. During this entire fiasco, the speaker is wondering if they are going to get another job which is how they put food on the table. That kicked the stress level up another 20 points.

Then there are the mistakes made by the booking agents at the beginning. A speaker can find themselves booked into a totally inappropriate crowd just because someone read and misinterpreted the title of a lecture. I tend to provide, when I am given enough notice, a transcript of the lecture and there are few deviations. Like I said, I depend on good old paper and ink. I know one speaker who lost loads of engagements and pretty much a book deal because the venue complained loudly to the entire world she had arrived inappropriately attired for the event. First of all, the event was in another part of the country and how was she to know what the attendees were going to look like and secondly, did they read the book? This was like booking a biker for an accounting convention and then being shocked he showed up in leathers rather than a button down shirt and tie. Even though I dress conservatively, I have been sorely out of place at a few meetings. I always advise people to make sure the people booking them know what they are getting. Send a picture and be prepared for the simple fact that no one pays attention.

There are other things the speaker is just not responsible for and that would be the air conditioning or heating, seats and venue. Most of the time the speaker hasn't even seen the room until they walk into it. I tend to explain that after 78 degrees I tend to pass out and that doesn't make for a good lecture. Most speakers never think to warn the management. At one lecture/booth, everyone involved in that aspect of the program came in from other states and were used to a very professional set up. What they got was an auditorium with such excellent acoustics every breath was magnified an unbearable volume, no air conditioning in 90 degree 100% humidity weather, concrete floors without carpeting and a really cheap assortment of folding tables that wouldn't hold any weight. I thought the psychic across from me was going to pass out and it turned out her standard attire was a suit with an insert rather than a blouse, so she couldn't remove the jacket. She was dying. Even the people from Australia next to me were dying and you know how hot it gets there. Not only that, but there was no food or drink available for the 8 hour event if you didn't bring your own and the closest restaurant was a few miles down the highway. That was the last time that event happened but everyone who bought tickets, usually 2 day tickets to see and hear speakers in rooms divided by sheets with the prerequisite karaoke machine that you couldn't use or you would blow the guy behind the next sheet through the wall, proceeded to trash the exhibitors and speakers. Trust me, I still get some fall out from it. I deny all knowledge of being there.

You see one of the problems in this profession is the organizers and the people making the money are invisible. They are often franchisees that use a national name on all the advertising. You never see them. Even when I have worked crew for big events, I have not known the actual organizers and could have fallen over their bodies and not known who they were. If the audience had gotten a hold of them, I would have been falling over their bodies. The national organization may drop the person but because they have the bucks and the venue, they just open under a new name with the same problems usually caused by skimping on everything possible to bring in the biggest amount of money. They get the booths because the vendors buy 4 booths and number 5 is free. The vendors like to travel a circuit as close to home as possible because they are dragging merchandise with them. And thus, for the first time, they pack a show hall. The second time just never happens.

The last complaint is the speaker was trying to sell books, tapes, cd's or products and the audience feels they paid for a lecture not a sales pitch. Now for reality my friends. You don't get on that stage with anything that isn't approved by the management. Believe me, start selling your what have you and you will be removed from the stage, immediately. I have asked speakers about this and the answer is always, we weren't being paid and the advertisement part of the lecture was our payment. You see, I never had anything I was selling when speaking so I had to ask the so-called offenders and that was the answer I got 100% of the time. One speaker even told me that the subject of his lecture was to be readings he provided and the management was going to do the booking and take a cut of the money. He spent the night eating chips and watching TV in a hotel room because there were no bookings and he was being trashed at the after dinner for being a money hungry advertiser. That was, by-the-way, the whole purpose of having him there. People with money will often spend a lot to get back at someone they think has done something to them. That also works for eliminating possible competition. There are few dirty tricks I haven't seen pulled in my 40+ professional years.

I had noticed at one event speakers were whisked away instantly, sometimes before they finished their speech. I had an expensive membership for this organization and then you only got discounted tickets for the events.

When a friend was booked I waited to find out what was really going on that the rest of us who paid money to get in were treated like third class citizens. It turned out the speaker was whisked to a dinner meeting where after driving from 5 AM to 6 PM to get there, she was expected to give her lecture again and then do readings for at least 40 people who had never been near the public event. This was what was really going on. After that, she would have any readings that were booked from the main event. Unfortunately it was after midnight and much to her dismay the next morning she found she also had to pay for the hotel room. Did she get paid for the event? Heck no. She was supposed to make her money off the readings booked from the main event. She tallied up over $300.00 worth of expenses because the rental car to get there turned out to be on her, too, and this was 40 years ago. Today that expense would be a thousand dollars or more as she had no control over the rental or the hotel. I don't need to tell you she didn't have the money. You might ask what the deal was with such an elaborate plan. The powers that be were selling real estate in a psychic community to the chosen at the dinner at a minimum of $40,000.00 a pop investment. In today's world that would be a few hundred thousand but you have no idea how many psychics and con artists would put up their life savings to live in a protected community with their own psychic kind and how people with more money than sense would pay millions to live there, too. The problem was the real estate didn't belong to them and was in a trust that could not be broken. I know because I had tried to buy the same land a year before. The public lectures and organization, that was using the name of an organization across the country that never heard of them, was a cover for the real estate con. Hence, folks, you never really know what is going on at these events. I could write a book on it. Hmmm... it might be a best seller.

Fortunately and thanks in a good part to the Internet, speakers are pretty wise to games that get played with them footing the bills but the blame for everything from the audience's antics to the weather is something speakers are still having laid at their feet.

Now, you the audience, have an idea of who is really at fault. So next time you have a really bad experience instead of blaming the wrong person, find out who is really running the event and then use their name in a complaint to the National Headquarters. Because no one ever does that, the National Headquarters may not find out what is going on for a two or more years. If it is an event with exhibitors, they will be filing the complaints before the end of the show because when you pay $600.00 or more for a booth you get a little testy if you are very uncomfortable. Also complain to the landlord. The odds are if the venue is very inappropriate for the event, the landlord was lied to about what was going on. Yes, you are going to get people in trouble, but they shouldn't be running events to start with and you will often, when you ferret out the culprits, discover they have no interest or connections to the theme of the event at all. They are con artists that move from venue to venue putting on events and lining their pockets while everyone else suffers. Landlords will put a quick end to that because they have organizations they belong to and the word travels fast.

Just a word to speakers so listen up. Nothing makes for better advertising than a feud between speakers or authors and it works to the advantage of the booking agents. If no one is comparing notes, people can get away with murder. Always, find out if the offending person actually said or did what they are accused of doing or saying. The whole thing may be a coverup for bad behavior on the part of the people hiring you.

Oh and a word to the wise to event organizers, do not feed pigs in a blanket to starving vegetarian authors. They will upchuck on your stage. Just saying.....