"Justice never came for me. It was a prize that eluded my grasp time and time again. I could not find fairness in my suffering, and it caused me a great deal of distress knowing that all I wanted—equality, resolution—it would never be mine. Upon my passing, I asked why.
Why was it to be this way?
Why was life meant to be spent in chains and shackles, burdened by the consequences of another's soul?
Why in all my attempts did I not receive justice?'

What I discovered was that martial law could usurp balance. That rouge energies are attracted to the place and space where like energy is contained. To say that I was a magnet for the experiences I didn't want would be true. As long as I held the energy within, I called them forward to me.

Sometimes in prayer, we will hear you say, 'Keep me from all evil of the world. Keep me safe and contained from all that is dark.' Yet, here you are, attracting the energy. You are coating yourself with your words and calling it to you. Instead, you should say, 'I am protected in the light. I am the light of God.' Do you see how much more preferable this is? Do you see how this changes the feeling and emotion of the words? Do you see how the calls to the light instead of calling to the dark? This is in no way suggesting you do not acknowledge the shadow side of life but I am merely showing you through my experiences and my knowledge on how to tip the scales in your favor."

Stories from the Dead
Mediumship channel through Jamie Homeister

I was gifted a vision yesterday while holding a friend of mine deep in my heart. In this vision, I was taken to an ethereal and foggy land. I scanned the horizon line looking for something to stand out, something familiar. It only took a moment before I saw her, Grandmother Spirit, nested in the wisps of clouds. She waved at me and motioned to join her.

As I approached, I noticed that she had situated herself before a large hole dug through the cloud cover. I peeked through its center; galaxies spun, planets moved, and stars shone as bright as our sun. Grandmother Spirit surprised me by branding a fishing pole. With a flick of her wrist, she cast its line sending the hook into the infinite cosmos below.

“What are you doing?” I asked curiously.

“Fishing for hope.” She replies. “Just as we fish for compliments, for problems, for troubles and strife; just as we fish for what’s heavy, overbearing, and familiar, so too can we fish for possibility. Hope is a holding space so that the goodness of life can move in and touch our hearts.”

“Is that what we need?” I ask. “Hope?“ She nods.

“Do you remember in the beginning of your spiritual journey when you could only perceive what was frightening and scary at first? When spiders and snakes were ominous instead of medicine? It took time for you to see the positive. Just as a river carves a canyon from a mountain and a stream smooths a stone, so too must your experiences create change in you so hope can flow like sacred water.”

She reeled in her fishing line and held up her catch: a ‪small, shadowed mass‬ hung lifeless from the hook. After inhaling deeply, she and blew. The black scattered like ashes caught in the wind. No longer darkened and no longer weighted, a bright, shiny star glistened and danced on the line. Grandmother looked at me and grinned with the joy of a five-year-old. She was quite proud of herself. And I couldn’t help but return her smile.

Throughout my life, I have become burdened with the weight of my experiences. Just as my bones gained in density, so too did my energetic system become weighed with my unresolved memories and emotions. We can hold Hope like a container, but first, we need to be hollowed. This is what can make the transformational spiritual journey so painful.

Muscle memory is the ability to reproduce a particular movement without conscious thought and built upon frequent repetition. Behaviors and thought patterns become embedded in this same manner. The seeker striving for healing becomes witness to the restrictive, the painful, the repressed, oppressed, and sodden spaces within in subconscious. My liberation had to be earned through my willing participation. In my own experiences, there has been no free-pass given.

Hollowing of the self only occurs by the light of consciousness: conscious thought. Conscious action. Conscious change. We can all be conduits of Hope. We all have it in us to see the eye and the storm, the light and the heavy, the star, and the shadow. My own hollowing wasn’t so that I could witness the positive first, but rather, to carve out space within me so that all expressions of the experience have space to exist. And no matter how scared or uncomfortable I feel, I can ground myself in the moment with an unwavering steadiness that only time and experience brings and know that sometimes all it takes is a few, deep exhales to let Hope shine.

Be love, loves.

When I was a young child, I dreamed of becoming three things: An artist, an author, and a nun. But my dreams of being anything were stolen very early. It was only later in life when I found painting did I come to know any sort of success. While others earned high school diplomas and graduated from college, my biggest accreditation came from my survival and somehow raising a child as a child myself. People would hear my story and say, “It’s incredible you’re alive and functioning!” And I would soak in that glory because that praise was literally all I had. It felt like everyone else had become somebody. They had a purpose. Drive. All I had was my life, and truthfully, I was barely hanging on.

When I began to search for Spirit, I had long surpassed any goals I ever could have set for myself as an artist. Most were shocked by my latent talent but it was oddly familiar to me. It’s like a greeting a person you always knew you would meet. A friend; an artist. An author. A nun. Finding purpose in art wasn’t easy though and I only found it inside the praise of others. I screamed for mercy at the empty sky. “Artistry alone cannot be my purpose!” That moment gifted the experience of discovery. Of psychic phenomena. Of hope. I created a new life and in it a way to combine reverence with color. It has been a beautiful journey.

I no longer see the sky as empty. I still come to it asking for help. But my body is so tired. This work is so physically taxing. One organ has already failed me and others threaten the same. I am suffering. Toxic big pharma can keep me at pace but I sacrifice my life. I poison my blood. I lose my laughter and my curiosity. I have to remind myself that this space is just a stepping stone. Always, I am just balancing on stepping stones. I am not intended to be here forever, just long enough until I am ready to move ahead.

When I sit with the feeling of my future, I see a teabag in a teacup. The supportive hands of Spirit cradling my body. The warmth of truth and reverence seeping its medicine into my blood. REAL medicine. The soul healing kind. The kind of I imagine to be running in the veins and fueling the path of an artist, an author, and a nun.

Happy full moon in Leo weekend.

This year, I wanted Christmas to be different. I wanted to take charge of myself and my responses in the face of my usual holiday triggers, like feelings of separateness from a lack of strong social circles and family bonding. I didn’t want to mask these feelings of separateness with casual alcohol. I wanted to step beyond my self-worth issues centered around my financial contributions, or how much I could mentally, emotionally, and physically participate in. And of course, to move beyond the crippling holiday sensory overload I experience every year.

But I know that to live in change one must be willing to begin the change. So, I started where I could: my relationship with social drinking. The second I began getting uncomfortable around others was the second I removed alcohol from my equation. Even though I’m a casual drinker at best when I do drink it’s to cope in social situations, which essentially means I drink to protect myself from being uncomfortable. And if I’m not uncomfortable in the situations that challenge me, then I’m not giving myself the opportunity to meet those challenges in a good way.

I also told myself I loved me a lot. Today was particularly hard because I had unintentionally (and irresponsibly) hurt my eldest’s feelings. I reminded myself that being accountable for my mistake is an act of integrity I can be proud of. And that offering a genuine, heartfelt apology through words and action, coupled with an open will to do better next time is enough to earn my own forgiveness and trust back in me.

The New Moon Eclipse hits this hemisphere tomorrow. I’m using this time to not only conceptualize what I want for my life this next decade but also to honor all that I’ve learned along the way. I hope your dreams take good care of you too. ~ Jamie

Tree Rings

They are silent scars,
tree rings,
simple markers of time
that ignores
the story between the lines,
the seasons of starvation,
the winters that lingered,
the days of summer,
of wine and dance,
the wild mistakes and the wilder joys,
the droughts and soft nights of love,
all of them lost in the lines,
each so similar to the next,
markers of age, so easily seen by others,
who cannot know your story in all it’s richness
unless you have the courage to leave the lines behind,
tell your own tale like the bards of old, creating a truth more true than honesty,
more true than markers or memories
or the lies of time.

~Tom Akers