I’ve just lived through two of the most peculiar weeks of my life.
My life is normally bizarre, comparatively speaking. However, a particular part of my mediumship has dialed itself up recently in a fun and interesting way. The past few weeks have broadened my horizons in a world where I thought I had pretty broad parameters.
I’ve been getting “stretched” spiritually over the past year or so, especially over the past couple of weeks, and all in a good way.
Over the past year, I have watched how my connection to Spirit has deepened. From earlier in the year, when I strangely knew I had to get a bouquet of yellow roses at one event and a stuffed bear and a can of beer at another, I’ve relaxed into the conversation I’m having with Spirit.
Because I’ve relaxed, perhaps even surrendered, to a deeper relationship with Spirit, the spirits and stories flow through me more deeply. I’m hoping to relay the events as they occurred to preserve the stories and show as many people as possible that we carry on after we pass, as does our love.
I recently had three live events around Halloween, the first being in Merrimack, New Hampshire, on Friday, November 1st. This was an event with about 80 people and one in a larger railroad hall: a beautiful space, a historical railroad hall with parked and preserved train cars right outside. The day after, I would be in a yoga studio in East Burke, VT, on Saturday, November 2nd, and a week later, I would be at the Tillotson Center in Colebrook, New Hampshire, on Friday, November 8th.
About a week before these events, I would know about certain items that I would have to bring to each one. I’d done that accidentally with the yellow roses and the purple horse earlier in the year, and each time it happened, it helped illustrate to those in attendance the importance of evidence.
When someone describes themselves as a “medium,” the word “evidential” is almost always inferred. This means that a medium communicating with the spirits of the deceased should be able to provide evidence that they’re doing so. I decided to lean into the process and ask what I should bring for gifts to these events.
What I didn’t know is how incredibly that request was going to be answered.
In Merrimack, New Hampshire…
The woman - a mother - had been with me for a week or so. She had a super inappropriate sense of humor, and she immediately wanted me to embarrass her daughter, who would apparently be in attendance. The gifts I had to bring for her daughter? A bouquet of lavender and a…pepperoni. I had no idea what the pepperoni was for, except that her mother wanted to embarrass her with something phallic-shaped. The bouquet of lavender confirmed for her that it was indeed this woman who loved to embarrass her daughter, as she loved lavender while alive.
Imagine me in front of 80 strangers, telling them I have a rowdy mother in spirit who wants to embarrass her daughter with pepperoni and who loves lavender. A hand goes up in the audience, and I kick off the event by doing what this fun and bawdy mom wanted me to do: embarrass her daughter in as fun-loving a way as possible. To remind everyone to remember laughter, humor, and joy. What a way to kick off the evening by waving around a pepperoni and getting her daughter to laugh again!
The second spirit was a husband who passed away shortly before a milestone anniversary. He made me get a bouquet of roses to bring to the event, because he wanted to give his wife flowers. He wished he'd been able to hold on long enough to get there, but his cancer took him before he could.
The woman I was drawn to lost her husband three weeks before their 20th anniversary, and every year he got her roses for their anniversary. I had to give her the roses he wanted me to, and to say she was touched is putting it mildly. I can’t tell you how much it meant to her, especially when I gave the roses to her - from him.
The next spirit was a woman who was both a teacher and a bookkeeper with specific messages for her granddaughter in the audience. After that, the spirit of a son and husband who wanted to talk to his mom and wife who were there.
In East Burke, Vermont…
For this event, I had a brown paper bag at the front of the room with gifts and items ready to go. In Merrimack, the items were just out in the open, and there was no way for me to hide those roses. At this event, I got everything in a small handheld shopping bag.
For about a week before the event, I knew I had to get tulips for someone who would be at this particular event. As I got closer to the event, the grandmother who wanted the tulips also wanted a stuffed animal to represent the pet her granddaughter took in after she died.
It's funny that I thought it was a cat, because the animal came through to me so small, but I came to find out it was an 8-lb dog! I purchased these items to show Emily that her grandmother knew well beforehand that she would be there, even if the message of the small furry pet came through a little fuzzy. Out of 30 people in the room, this was such a specific message and token of affection from her grandmother!
The next one was challenging because, funnily enough, I don’t like to talk about religion. As a spiritualist, I do my best not to promote any one religion or spirituality over another. I believe in a “personal myth” in that humans have many ways to develop a relationship with spirit, and each will provide a story and a matrix to hold their spiritual beliefs. I can only hope the personal myths people create for themselves help lead them to the higher virtues of love, compassion, wisdom, and grace.
The second spirit was a grandmother who was very religious in life. A few days prior, I had to search for a children’s book about Jesus. It would be for the granddaughter of this grandmother, and the granddaughter would be someone who works with children. When a woman raised her hand - a preschool teacher with a really religious grandmother - I had to give her the book I bought for her.
I then had to tell this woman that she was a good Christian without being an actual Christian. I told her that she didn’t need the church or the Bible to find those higher virtues, as she already had found them elsewhere. She was generally awful to herself, and her grandmother could see that. I had the opportunity to remind her of the other side of the Golden Rule, which is just another version of Christ’s “Love thy neighbor” message..
Most of us know the Golden Rule as “Do unto others as we would like them to do unto us,” right? The other side is “We must do unto ourselves what we would want others to do to themselves.” If we’re kind and gracious to others, shouldn’t we also be on that list? That was the point of the grandmother’s message, and if we are to love our neighbors - as this preschool teacher believed - then we need to love ourselves as well.
She had to do a better job of loving her grandmother’s granddaughter.
Then, out of the small brown paper bag, I pulled a small stuffed animal on a keychain. This had to do with someone who had anime stuffies on their backpack, though I couldn’t specifically find an anime stuffie. I could only find a stuffed keychain shaped like a smiling heart with hands and feet, which seemed perfect. The spirit coming through was the niece of the aunt at this event, and the stuffed toy was for the daughter of the niece who passed away.
The next woman in spirit, for whom I didn’t have a gift because she showed up right before the event began, was a larger Italian woman. She identified herself to me by ravioli and red sauce, and she was there for her granddaughter’s best friend, who was in the audience. And on and on for the rest of the evening.
Each of the loved ones in spirit who came through only had one wish for their loved ones here: peace.
In Colebrook, New Hampshire…
It was at the Tillotson Center in Colebrook, New Hampshire when I had a significant revelation.
A week before this event, I ordered a dog frisbee for the spirit of a dog that would be there. A day or so after that nudge, I had the intuition to get a corncob pipe for the grandfather in spirit, who would also be there with that particular dog. I knew the grandfather didn't ever get a chance to meet the dog in life, but the point was they were there together in spirit.
And the mama of this furbaby had to know that.
I had a feeling this person was going to be in the front row, and sure enough, she was there with her mother. She did indeed have a black lab who was her best friend and obsessed with playing fetch. Her mother had the grandfather who kept a corncob pipe clenched between his teeth and also loved dogs.
With me, also for about a week, was a husband and wife who sat in matching recliners while alive. They felt like Archie and Edith Bunker in that they would bicker with one another incessantly but love each other deeply. I had to get a tube of Bengay for him and a tube of lavender hand lotion for her. He rubbed Bengay on while alive, and she would rub her lavender lotion on, and they would bicker and love each other the whole time. The lotions became gifts to their daughter, as undeniable evidence they were with her always.
Each of these gifts was in a bag on the stage, and as I reached in to hand them out, it dawned on me:
I'd become Santa Claus.
The next gift was more difficult to hand out: a Lego dump truck from a father to the mother of his child. The father was in building trades while he was alive and had a hand in his own passing, and he wanted me to give the mother of his child these Legos. He needed me to apologize profusely for leaving her behind to do the work of raising their children. He was so sorry but needed her to know all the emotions she felt - grief, love, anger - were okay and that he loved her through all of them.
Finally, as I was in the grocery store before this event, I walked by the floral department and heard, "Get roses. It's someone's birthday." I thought it was the birthday of someone in the audience, but it wasn't. It was the birthday of a mother who passed away, and I gave the roses to her daughter.
What a night of Love.
What a night of divine intervention - to have these spirits and these messages with me for almost a week beforehand!
Every spirit that came through me at these events has only wanted the peace, love, and joy of the person they’re speaking to through me. That was the overarching theme of the messages that spirit brought forth at these three events. Our loved ones in spirit want us to be well while we’re alive in this world. They also want us to know that they carry on in Spirit and watch us while we’re here.
And how important it is to make the most of our time here.
As I reached into my bag in Colebrook to pull out the dog frisbee and the corncob pipe, I saw it for what it was: a gift-bearer pulling gifts out of a bag and giving someone undeniable evidence their loved ones lived on. The Bengay, the lavender hand cream, the Lego set, and the birthday roses… were all gifts handed out in love. Like Santa Claus would have done, that jolly old elf.
I accidentally became Santa Claus for a handful of people that week and gave evidence for so many others with these gifts representing these stories of love, our collective stories of life and death.
Humans have been performing this life-and-death story for a long time, and throughout the thousands and thousands of years we've been performing it, it's most often not been easy. What's gotten us through, time and again, is the perseverance of the human spirit in the face of adversity. That’s what each spirit wanted to bring to their loved one here, in this world.
What's gotten us through is Love, not hate.
Hate will only ever consume itself, over and over, like the cancer that it is. Love is the greatest source of strength and wisdom we can access because when we carry a burden for someone we love, we find the strongest version of ourselves. When we have to solve a problem for someone we love, we find the wisest version of ourselves.
Love will give us our greatest strength and wisdom. If there’s a way to get through a difficult situation, Love will show us how. When facing our greatest challenges, what would we tell our loved ones to do in our place? What would we say to a child facing the same, whether that challenge was in our heart or part of the world around us?
That answer, the one that comes from Love, will always be our greatest guiding light.
Not hate, not anger, not self-hatred, self-doubt, or fear. Each mother, father, child, grandparent, or other spirit who comes through me seems to know this and reiterates it: Love is our most extraordinary power. Tap into it for ourselves and for our loved ones around us. Find peace.
It’s only what our loved ones want, whether in spirit or with us in life. They want us to live in love and joy because they know how much fear and hatred will drain us.
But they also know how much Love will sustain us.