Over the past year I’ve been making a serious effort to live by my 4 primary spiritual beliefs. They’re very simple…

1) There’s nothing that is not God. Regardless of our individual choices as humans, we are all cut from the same cloth.

2) We do not think separately. On the human level it appears that we do. But as I look back at all the coincidences and synchronicities that have occurred in my life, I know that there’s a bigger, far more intricate network connecting us and guiding our individual actions.

The walks in the park when we bump into friends we haven’t seen in years… the incredible encounters with strangers on the grocery store line… the books that appear to have the perfect message at the perfect time… they only look random. They’re designed to look random, kind of like your spouse taking you out to dinner so the rest of your friends can decorate for your surprise party.

But in reality, they’re far from random. The reason why we have synchronicities is because there’s nothing that is not God. So how could you not know what to do?

3) Creation is our natural ability. The more you acknowledge and flex that ability, the stronger it becomes.

4) Perception is EVERYTHING. This is the truly glue that melds everything together. Whatever you perceive to be true, will play out as truth in your life.

I meditated on the whole concept of perception last Friday. As I was meditating, I felt an inner push to pull a card from the Wisdom of the Hidden Realms oracle deck by Colette Baron-Reid. When I pull random cards, I normally spread the cards across the table and use my left hand to feel the energy of the cards.

The card I pulled was The Eyes of Beauty. Here’s what the book says, “When the Eyes of Beauty show up as your Ally, they require you to examine your perceptions. Do you see the world as perfect and beautiful? Can you retrace your steps from your past to now and see the perfection in the way reality has been created?

Truly, perception is everything. A glass half-empty is the same as a glass half-full, yet so different according to how it’s perceived.”

I admit that even I was a little stunned by the accuracy of the message. Accuracy never gets boring though!

What Spiritual Beliefs Do You Live By?

This blog is called Spiritual Bonfire because the things that you believe should fuel a burning excitement and happiness within you. Your beliefs generate the bonfire.

If your beliefs generate fear and sadness, then you don’t have a bonfire. You have a flame coming from a match. How far do you think you’re going to get with that?

Beliefs should empower you to be greater, think better, and move closer to your powerful spiritual nature. Spiritual beliefs should bring you comfort, like woolly mittens or a bowl of soup on a cold day.

If you agree with my spiritual beliefs, you’re more than welcome to incorporate them in to your life. They certainly keep me moving and grooving. But if you have different beliefs, do you know exactly what those beliefs are? I mean are they vague concepts, or are you confident with what they’re saying? Do you actively incorporate them into your life?

As the old saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

I miss my daughter while she’s at school. So when I go pick her up, I’m genuinely excited to see her. I always stand near the playground equipment waiting for her to come out.

I so want her to come running over to me, and give me a big, fat kiss. But there was a time when she didn’t. She’d burst out of the door, make a mad dash to another part of the playground and jump on the equipment with glee.

Truth be told, I felt sad when she did this. I’d be waiting all day to see her. I’d watch all the other mom’s getting hugs and kisses from their little people. I’d be all worked up for this grand mommy/daughter embrace – and she’d just zip right on past me. Not even so much as a wave or a wink.

One day something inside of me snapped. I got angry because I felt like she was purposely ignoring me. I took her out of the playground and scolded her about it.

“You see me standing there, and yet everyday you just run right past me! Why do you do that? You can’t stop for a minute to say hi? Geeez! Come on… that’s not right and you know it!”

The truth – as I later found out – is that she never noticed me standing there. Apparently, her long distance vision was getting worse and she needed glasses. She wasn’t ignoring me. She just didn’t see me.

The Pain of Being a “Poor Me” Person

I replayed that situation in my mind long after she got the glasses. It was a wake-up call of sorts. My assumptions gave me a feeling of anger and sadness, yet there was actually no reason for either of those emotions. It was a waste.

Apparently I needed another reminder of this fact because a similar situation occurred the other day. I was walking down the street happy as a lark, when an older woman crosses in front of me, giving me what looks like an “I-hate-you” sneer.

The schoolyard moment immediately played out in my mind.

And then I connected with her. I intuitively knew that even though she gave me a bad look, it wasn’t directed at me. I felt that something had just happened in the store that made her angry. I knew it. I rarely download information about people on the street, but I saw the entire scene in my head.

What You See is not a Test

Spirit apparently wasn’t finished explaining my displaced emotions. The big message came last.

I was listening to the Journey of Life podcast online. I tuned in because I kept feeling the name Callie in my mental airspace over the past few weeks, and they had a guest on last night by the name of Callie Claire. As soon as I heard that she was going to be on the show, I knew I was meant to hear her.

The show was just about over, and although I’d heard a few things that resonated with me, I didn’t get that magical ‘click.’

Maybe 10-15 minutes before the show ended (it’s a 90 minute show) Callie starts talking about taking in other peoples anger.

She said she’s realized that when someone else is mad, their anger has nothing to do with her. Perhaps they started their day off on the wrong foot, or maybe they’ve got a sick child at home while they’ve got to be at work. Either way, she doesn’t allow herself to become unseated because of it.

That’s what I was waiting for. That was the reason why I kept getting this vision of Callie in my head. (I didn’t know who she was prior to that broadcast.)

Contrary to the “poor me” beliefs that I like to lean back on, the worlds negativity really isn’t directed at me 99.9% of the time. And if that holds true for me, it holds true for everybody else.

Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It:

How many times have you allowed yourself to be thrown off course because someone else “made you mad?” How many times have you assumed that they were purposely hurtful to you?

I have friends whose days are filled with unnecessary debates with “nasty” cashiers and waiters. And yet, we never know what pain lies underneath someone else’s skin. We just assume that whatever their feeling is directed towards us. Really it’s not.

So this weekend I want you to observe with compassion. If you encounter an angry cashier, for example, don’t jump on the anxiety train with them. Know that whatever they’re going through has nothing to do with you. Simply complete your transaction, and silently send them love.

I’m going to tell you right now that it’s not always easy.

But even just making a conscious decision not to get sucked in to someone else’s emotions, changes you. Even if you don’t always succeed, you’re going to be much more likely to think about what you’re doing.

Change may not happen instantly, but it will happen.

Try it and be well.

I’m a single parent, so I’m very forthright about discussing certain things with my daughter. We recently talked about death and moving on, which she hated.

But it’s a reality… we all have to face death eventually. I wouldn’t want to get hit by a Mack truck tomorrow, having never explained to her that there’s something good to this whole death process. I needed her to at least understand my personal philosophy.

So to make her feel a little better, we made a pact. We decided that if I died early in life, I would come back and tickle the tip of her nose so that she knows I’m okay. We agreed that nose tickling would be less scary than let’s say, seeing me hovering over her bed.

And it occurred to me… nose tickling is actually a metaphor for the way our spirit guides communicate with us.

Though they may not feel it, guides do understand human fear. They know that dropping a book out of the bookshelf would probably scare the shit out of us. I mean I don’t know about you, but even if the book landed on the exact page for something that I needed to see at that exact moment, I’d be uber paranoid and ready to pull out the holy water! Most of us need more subtle signs – myself included.

The guides don’t want us to be all weirded out. Nor do they want to interfere with our free will. So they reserve the big neon signs for major emergencies – like if your toddler is about to jump in the backyard pool.

Otherwise they gently tickle our noses – meaning they softly pop a thought into our minds. Nose tickling is far less intimidating, but it’s also quite easy to ignore.

So what should you look for? Here are three nose ticklers my spirit guides do:

Give me a seemingly random thought while I’m talking to someone about an important matter.

When I first started giving readings I’d start thinking about old conversations I’d had with other people.

Each time during those sessions my client would end up telling me something important that pertained to the topic of my old conversation. The conversations are my nose ticklers. I realize now that if a conversation passes through my mind, it has a message for my client.

Keep showing you the same random word for days or weeks.

I recently went through what I call the temperance phase. In tarot, temperance is the 12^th card in the major arcana. It’s not like a good, good or a bad, bad card. It has an almost esoteric feeling that can be hard to decipher if you’re looking for a cut and dry, “what-should-I-do-now” type of message. And it’s not a word that I would normally use – even on my superfluous vocabulary days.

For a while temperance suddenly started popping up all over the place. I pulled my tarot cards for the day, and there it was dead center… temperance. (Nose tickler.) Not just once or twice, but maybe four times this happened.

“Ummmm spirit guides,” I said, “I know you all want me to see this. But I don’t quite understand the meaning I’m supposed to gain.” Two days later I’m reading a book, and it gives the meaning of temperance – in a way that I could fully understand, nonetheless.

The spirit guides want you to know that you can ask for clarification on a nose tickler. I absolutely do it all the time.

Make you stumble into a conversation that totally applies to you.

I’m not usually an ear hustler (aka eavesdropper). But sometimes my spirit guides lead me into a conversation that I’m supposed to hear. How do I know it’s a nose tickler?

Well it’s usually when I don’t want to hear anyone else’s conversation. Let’s say I’m at a café working on my laptop. I’m in the flow of an article, when a couple sits down next to me and starts chatting. Loudly. Uuuuugh!

In my mind I’m thinking, “Shut up!” I want to move. I want some $300 noise cancelling headphones. Then they’ll start talking about something that has direct meaning to my life. I mean like a dead on center. And the advice given during that conversation is clearly meant for me. Clearly, clearly, clearly!

I find that the conversation nose tickler comes up when I’ve chosen to ignore other nose ticklers. For example, I may have gotten other signs before and fluffed them off. The conversation is like confirmation without asking for it.

Your mileage may vary.

This is just a representative of how my spirit guides talk to me.

Your results may be completely different, and that’s okay. What I want you to do this week is pay attention to everything you believe are signs from spirit guides. If you think to yourself, “Mmmmm, I wonder if that’s a sign…” it usually is.

I know I have several spirit guides, but there’s one in particular who I’ve grown especially fond of over the years. I don’t see him as a person, and I haven’t given him a name. In my minds eyes I perceive him as a point of light, and he’s with me a good part of my work day, when I’m writing.

You see whenever I get stuck, he helps me along. He gives me words and phrases and even entire ideas. He leads me to books I need to read. He introduces me to magazines that seem to have the right article with the perfect advice for whatever I’m working on.

If you were a fly on my wall, you’d hear me periodically saying “thank you” throughout the day. You might even see me jumping up and down on occasion. That’s me talking to my writing spirit guide.

Funny thing is, I never formally contacted him, or even went looking for such a relationship. Over the years I just came to realize that somebody else was indeed working with me. He comes when I need him, he leaves when I don’t.

But this isn’t unusual. I was once speaking to another writer who (without knowing my mystical affinity)confessed that she thought she was being led while she wrote. You can’t imagine the big grin that suddenly stretched across my face. I was so relieved to hear that someone else felt it too.

And that’s the “Aha” about contacting your spirit guides. You don’t necessarily have to go seeking them out in order to feel them working in your life.

Spirit guides are here to help you. They already made a bunch of happy-go-lucky plans with you before you came into your gorgeous body. Having spirit guides silently assist you is no more shocking or out of place than having the steady presence of your guardian angels.

The benefit of knowing that you have these spirit guides is that you move a lot faster through your difficulties. When I know I’m getting help from my writing guide, I zip right through my work. I don’t even have to question whether it’s right or wrong because I know I’m getting divine assistance.

Contacting your spirit guides is easy!

There are two schools of thinking when it comes to spirit guide contact.

School #1 says you’ve got to close your eyes and meditate to increase your energy vibration.It’s been said that spirit guide energy is much finer than our dense human field. So by raising your energy, you’re better able to enter their world.

School #2 says that if you want to contact your spirit guide, all you gotta do is just talk to them. I’m the principal of School #2, and I’m telling you that spirit guides don’t need pomp and circumstance for us to have a regular conversation with them.

If you want to meditate, then by all means meditate.

Otherwise they perfectly understand when you need assistance, even without the meditation and the quieting of the mind formalities. My writing helper is a perfect example. I don’t meditate before I write or even during the writing process. Even if I get writers block I get up and walk around my house. And yet he knows exactly what I need and I know when he’s talking to me.

But that’s just me and my writing guide. When I need help on other issues, I like to initiate contact with the appropriate guide.

Here’s the exercise I use:

1) Decide what you need help with. It can be relationship issues, career problems, whatever. If your kid is driving you crazy, that’s a need. If your dinner recipe is looking more like mush than ‘mmmm, mmmm good’, that’s a problem worthy of help too.

2) Explain your problem. Just say what I need out loud. Like, “I don’t know why Max isn’t listening to me and it’s driving me crazy. Can you help me better understand how to bridge our communication gap?”

If it’s a little deeper, you may want to pull out your journal and write your problem down. No need to be shy or reserved, just state the problem as best you can.

3) Ask, “Who will help me?” Spirit guides come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and energy frequencies. The spirit guide who helps me when I’m writing isn’t the same one who assists me in the romance department. I have at least four different guides (that I know of) who help me with spiritual issues, depending on the nature of the problem. And that’s just the beginning of my spirit guide team.

It’s not unusual to have multiple spirit helpers. But I find that I can solve the problem a lot faster by knowing who I’m working with.

So once I know the problem I need help with, I’ll ask, “Who will help me?” Sometimes one guide will appear. Sometimes it’s more than one. And by ‘appear’ I mean I might feel an energy, or I’ll see an image in my mind’s eye. You may feel heat or vibrations. There might be movie-like pictures playing out in your mind. A name or a flower or a bird might pop into your mind. These all comprise a spirit guides appearance.

4) Observe what happens and remember their appearance. As you experience your spirit guides appearance, be it energetic or otherwise, I want you to remember what it feels like. Is it a tickling in your belly? A bright star? A low hum?

5) Ask that they lead you to a solution. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million times over… the Universe is ALWAYS communicating with us. If you ask for a conversation with your spirit guide, you’re going to get a conversation with your spirit guide.

The problem is that we don’t pay attention when the guides are talking because their language is often so subtle that’s it’s easy to miss or dismiss.

So I ask my spirit guides to make their appearance known when I’m being shown a specific direction.

For example, when I’m writing, I can tell when my guide is helping me because the words appear in my mind a certain way. They’ve got a springy, loving type energy. And it comes through quickly, like a pop. My own thoughts are very different. My own thoughts feel, well, normal.

Now keep in mind, this exercise might take some getting used to. You may have to work at feeling or understanding the difference between your own energy and a spirit guides energy. But once you catch the subtleties, you’ll know when you’re being guided and by whom. And you’ll find yourself working through even the most stressful situations with a comfortable ease.

As with anything else, practice makes perfect.

It’s no secret that I enjoy a good reading from another psychic every now and then. It’s almost like being a massage therapist with an achy back. Even though you know how to give a killer massage, kneading on your own skin doesn’t give you as much pleasure as having another professional push and pull on it for an hour.

Sometimes I’m so emotionally immersed in a situation that I need someone else to help me see what I’m missing. So I do the same thing that you do. I call my guy up in a frenzy wondering, “Can I get an appointment TODAY???? Pullleeeeease?”

But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Obviously there are A LOT of psychics out there. Some people look for the cheapest psychic. Some people look at testimonials. Some people want a local psychic. Everybody seems to have this internal checklist.

That’s all well and good. I mean sometimes it works, and sometimes you’re left scratching your head. But I’ve found that if you want to find a great psychic, you must choose with your heart.

Comfort arrives in heartfelt connections.

There’s an elevator repair company that I walk past each morning when I’m taking my daughter to school. One of the workers has a window seat facing the street. Every morning and every afternoon we wave to each other.

I only know this guy from his spot in the window. I wave. He waves. I actually look forward to waving.

My psychic is like the guy in the window. I read his web page. I noticed that he has traveled a lot. I have too. He seemed down-to-earth… not jumping off the new age woo-woo meter. Cool. I like down to earth people. He’s a fellow city dweller. I’m a city dweller. On a heart level, we mesh. He’s kinda like me.

That makes me feel comfortable about dealing with him.

Selecting a psychic isn’t like buying a cell phone – yet that’s the way many people choose one.

Seeing a psychic is an emotional act. You are essentially placing a certain amount of your sanity and well being into another person’s hands. And whatever that person says is going to change you on a conscious and an unconscious level.

It’s okay to look at testimonials and press clips and whatever. But it’s even more important to feel a psychic out with your own heart. What’s their philosophy? What type of person are they? Do they come from a background that’s similar to your own?

Read their web site. Read between the lines. Do you feel a connection… a buzz… a tingling… a click? If you don’t, then move on.

When you find the right psychic you will know it. Your readings will be magical. You’ll understand the metaphors and the symbols. You’ll feel comfortable and comforted.

Choose from the heart and the Universe will reward you with your heart’s desire. (And yes… you’ll be able to afford it too!)