First, I want to share with you the time I spent with my Grandmother.
I spent every summer with her in Maine swimming at the lake which was a minute walk from her camp. I learned to bake and cook in her small kitchen, helped her in her garden, played dominoes, ate ice cream floats and talked “girl talk”.
She was my best friend and my sanctuary during those 6 weeks. She came to live with me at 90. I credit her nurturing love in my knowing I was worthy after a very rocky start to my life. Her devotion to her own goodness was a reminder of mine. She died at 94 but I still feel her presence with me nearly every day.
Also during that time I ran and hiked along the craggy stone coast with my sister and Dad, swam and fished in her cold oceans and warm lakes, ate lobster on the rocks next to the crashing waves and loved every minute of it. I miss Maine every single day.
At the age of 3 my mother, Jackie, left. I never saw or heard from her again until I sought her out and met her in my early 30’s. Her abandonment left me shattered and feeling responsible. It was this gulf in my heart that drove me to drink alcohol in my mid teens and start a physically and emotionally abusive relationship. I was able to free from that situation 2 years later with a fierce determination to survive. Angels in the form of strangers helped me flee.
When I was 5 my father married Lynette who went blind the following year from Diabetic Retinopathy. She got her first Seeing Eye Dog Ginger, got her Master’s Degree in Education from UVM, taught in area schools and became a potter. She started to meditate and saw figures in her mind’s eye and went on to sculpt them and those figures were eventually cast in bronze. Her pieces are in private collections all over the world, one graces my home.
Her healing process was my introduction to the power of meditation. We went to a mass meditation with Bernie Siegal (Love, Medicine and Miracles) and listened to tapes of Louise Hay (You can Heal your Life). I watched her handle her struggle with blindness with an unwavering grace. In her inner wisdom she followed healing modalities that were just coming to light in the New Age Movement and helped me to prepare for my own healing journey.
I am forever indebted to her for being in my life and showing me that you never, ever give up and to continue to move forward no matter what. More importantly, the path to your healing won’t be like anyone else’s and to trust when you know something works for you and what doesn’t. She and I are testaments to knowing that healing is possible.
By 21 after breaking up with my fiancée when I was drunk, I started to realize that I was an alcoholic and I stopped cold turkey. I have been clean ever since. The ironic thing about when I met Jackie is when I asked her why she left she said “because I am an alcoholic”. I had an inner wisdom that told me at the time I quit that I was heading down the wrong path and I learned the power and wisdom of following my own intuition.
In my mid thirties I met a healer who offered sessions for healing which I started going to, twice a week. After my own progress and a few years later, we shared her house for 6 years which was very much like going to a healing school. I learned Craniosacral Therapy, Cupping, Massage, Reiki and the benefits of Gua Sha, Listening and much more. At that time I learned that I was an Intuitive Medium (listening). During that time we would swap healing sessions, where I would use my healing abilities to assist her in her own healing journey. I am deeply grateful for her sisterhood and the incredible work I did and learned there. She and I remain very close.
Since I left her house, I returned to my connection to nature and studied various sources which continue to shape my internal landscape. The works of Viktor Frankl, Anita Moorjani, Immaculee Ilibagiza, Richard Bach and Wayne Dyer are all sources of inspiration, to just name a few. I then discovered Meditation, which truly continues to be the most powerful tool to connect with my higher self and spirit. These many years of internal work have expanded my intuitive medium abilities. I am thankful to share them with you.
Today I live in Vermont, at the base of the Green Mountains with my husband, 1 cat, 3 dogs and 3 chickens. (all rescues-except my husband). I love to garden, read and hike. I still bake pies using my grandmother’s glass pie plate and return to run on those craggy rocks every chance I get.