Reading Example

This is a reading that I did for a friend who also has bipolar disorder. I hope it displays the kind of attention I pay to readings I do for others. My friend held a very important position in her professional life before her illness sidelined her. I perceived her as feeling at loose ends, wanting to feel that she is achieving something in life. Of course I feel that the things she does in everyday life and the strength she shows in dealing with her disease are great accomplishments. But I understand the need to feel that one has accomplished something on a personal level.
I appreciate my friend allowing me to use this reading as an example.

> The initial card, the 8 of pentacles, represents learning new skills. I feel in this case it means learning skills to cope with your condition, as this wasn't something you had to cope with previously. This truly is a job in itself. Actually incorporating these skills is complicated by the scrutiny of others in your life, whether these are family members, people in general, or perceptions of "sanity" and "insanity." This is represented by the queen of swords, a cuttingly sensible kind of personality. Hers are impossibly rigid standards. She can represent a person's inner critic, who is often incredibly harsh and perfectionistic.
> The ace of cauldrons represents achieving peace of mind through spiritual understanding. Pursuing spiritual learning and doing meditation will be particularly helpful at this time.
> The three of pentacles represents your working life and achievements, which you were very proud of. Adjusting to the difficulties that terminated this life are very difficult and this often causes you to be unable to see your true worth. Yet the six of rods indicates your triumph over the attitude of self-defeat more and more often. You have a lot to teach others and are a
great, positive influence, more than you can imagine.
>The eight of rods indicates a time of blessings. I feel they will be small in nature but the cumulative effect will be very positive for your sense of well being and happiness. This time will last for approximately six months.
> The eight of swords again echoes how trapped you feel by your situation and your condition. Yet the three of cups indicates a multitude of persons who have good will towards you and will do whatever they can to help support you. The three of swords indicates a powerful depressive internal atmosphere. The thing that will get you through this is to draw upon the energies expressed in the Emperor card. The most beneficial assistance at this time is to be found in masculine energies. If your physician is male, pay particular attention to his advice at this time. Also seek assistance from God energies, by calling upon male deities for strength or by tapping into the masculine energies in your own soul, as all souls have both male and female polarities.
> The next several months are also beneficial for brainstorming, writing down ideas and beginning projects. The time is not yet right for working on details or finalizing projects that you have begun. The key words are inspiration and energy as opposed to formation and solidification.
>
> Though the Tarot is my favorite tool for divination, it often seems very heavy-handed. This is why I also like to give a clarification reading from a deck that has a lighter energy. In this case, the Mermaids and Dolphins deck by Doreen Virtue.
>
> The first card, representing the past, cautions to watch your thoughts. The reason for this, of course, is that thoughts have energy. Of course it's impossible to always have positive thoughts. Fear based thoughts will creep in. The key is to acknowledge that you are having the thought, but negate its energy by telling it, either internally or aloud, that you will not allow it to have power over you. Positive affirmations and prayers can be helpful in negating the negative energy of obsessive thoughts. If possible, replace the negative thought with an opposing positive affirmation. With recurring obsessive thoughts it is sometimes necessary to ignore rather than acknowledge them, simply acknowledging that the thought is the product of
obsession rather than reality.
>
> The card in the present position is the healing heart. This card calls upon you to acknowledge your positive affect on others and your healing energies. There is again a caution to cultivate positive thoughts as much as possible. If you wish, call on angels or deities to direct you to use this energy tobest help yourself and others.
>
> The third card represents the future influence. It is self employment. Going back to the Emperor card, it might be a good time to investigate possibilities for legitimate businesses that could be done online rather than requiring a physical presence at a job. I have no stake in this because I wouldn't get any kick-back if you signed up. I haven't signed up yet either, it's just something I was looking into this morning. A business of this nature might be appealing.
(Note: I now have some stake in enticing people to sign up for this business but at the time I didn't. Check out Cie's distributor web page.)
>
> My energy is kind of tapped by now (after about 45 minutes, my ability to hone in and be accurate starts to fade) but if you'd like, I can do another reading to investigate this further!

Readings are $50 and take approximately 1 hour to complete. Click here to request a reading. Great care is taken in interpreting the impressions received from the cards to best advise the questioner. Readings can be obtained for free if you purchase copy of the book or if you agree to have the results posted on this blog as an example. Don't worry, I won't use your real name!

Ten Bucks to WHO

So far we've sent ten dollars to the World Health Organization thanks to a generous donation from a friend, who we will mention by name and link to should she want us to. But we want to donate much, much more. Help us by spreading the word about the book, buying a copy or making a donation. Right now we have a great gift for everyone who makes a donation or buys an autographed copy. Go to the official website and find out more!

All Work and No Play

I don't have a lot of readers here yet, but I still wanted to say for the few that I do have that I had become quite depressed from being too busy. That does happen to me, being bipolar and all. I'm not sure how much I'll go into the feelings of suicide ideation or things like that.
A lot of things are changing, being rearranged. I am not one of those people that deals well with change. Even positive change is very stressful to me. I need to step back and analyze what I'm doing and what needs to be done.
I hope that what I say here will perhaps help someone, even if only to know they are not alone.
Blessings,
Lily

Hallucination vs. Communication

Merry meet!

I know that I'm going to encounter the type that believes that because I have bipolar disorder, my spirit communication is nothing but hallucination. But I only hallucinate when I'm

a) on prescription pain meds

b) tripping on psychotropic drugs

c) really tired

d) really sick and have a high fever.

I try to avoid a) because the hallucinations that these cause are almost always bad, such as demons and red-eyed giant bats with blood dripping from their fangs. Medical professionals don't want to believe that people can hallucinate from these medications. When I was hospitalized after having my son via c-section 17.5 years ago I had to argue with both the nurse and the doctor that Darvocet was causing me to hallucinate.

"It doesn't do that," the nurse insisted.

"Well, that's fine," I said. "At least now I know that the huge bat with the red eyes and blood dripping from its fangs is real."

Not for the first time, I was dubbed a "smart ass" and a "trouble maker" by medical staff.

I haven't done b) in 25 years. Except for the time I was certain that my tongue was trying to crawl down my throat, the types of hallucinations I had while indulging in psychotropic drugs were invariably very bright neon colors and included a field full of poinsettias (feel free to hit me upside the head--I was driving while tripping when I saw this) colorful insects, small animals such as rats, cats and dogs, but obviously not rats, cats and dogs from this world; and UFO's. Not aliens, just UFO's. I watched a donut turn into a UFO one time and take off into the sky. Great fun!

I never once perceived a human spirit while tripping. I would sometimes perceive either angelic or demonic presences. The barrier between ourselves and such beings is broken down by the use of such drugs, but that is a discussion for another time. I don't think most human spirits are able to break through the mental static that I generate when messing my brain up this way.

When I'm c) very tired, I again tend to see animals. They aren't glowing or neon, they just don't belong. Penguins and snakes are a favorite and once I saw a gigantic rooster. Last week when entering a state of complete exhaustion I chanced to see a face on an oven fry. I didn't eat that one!

When d) feverish (like I was tonight) I might see animals or mythological creatures. Tonight while burning up with a 102 degree fever (food poisoning is such fun!) I looked over and saw a small gargoyle sitting on the table nearby to the couch I was resting on. Sometimes with creatures like this, I believe they might really be present, I just can't see them without the veil between worlds being eroded a bit. Some of these hallucinations may actually be elemental beings. The gargoyle, whatever it was, had a friendly presence, so I didn't dismiss it.

One thing that these states of mind do not help with is spirit communication. Everything that my spectral co-author attempted to say to me during this time (while extremely exhausted and then having the fever) came through as static. I had to fight to feel if he was present and he had to fight to make his presence known. Since we've been working together for 2 years now, we're pretty well in tune to each other's vibration. Once he was able to say anything again he said it was like trying to talk to somebody using radio communication and getting a lot of static, and also like trying to walk through a very dense fog to reach the person.

If the boundaries between worlds become very eroded, i.e. if a person is deathly ill, they will be able to see spirits and creatures such as angels, demons and elementals more readily because the sick person is preparing to pass into that world.

The thing that I've found in my life is that there is no one truth. Some visions are true hallucinations, produced by brain chemicals that are temporarily or permanently whacked. Some things that appear to be hallucinations aren't. One has to learn to judge and to realize that sometimes the answer won't be clear and to just accept that they are seeing something that may or may not be real.

Another time I'll discuss my view on psychosis and illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Merry part until we meet again.

Lily

Fashion Disaster

While reading this article I found myself really glad to have raised a son that doesn't give a rip about fashion. He likes t-shirts, polo shirts, baseball shirt and the occasional Hawaiian shirt. He wears Dockers, cords and jeans. He loves his soft suede Addidas hiking shoes that I got for around $60. They're well made and will easily last a year. He doesn't give a damn about the price tag and, as a young man who somehow came out very sensible about money, feels that the cheaper you can get what you want, the better. Thankfully he always preferred pants that stayed up rather than wanting to expose his boxer shorts to the world.

When I was his age going to school with a bunch of bible thumpers, the way I dressed said Satan Worshipper. Not because of the bloodstains on my clothes or the animal heads I kept in my locker. Because the t-shirts I favored said things like AC/DC and Iron Maiden.

Hey, what do ya know--I still wear those! The jeans don't fit any more though. Sadly I'm twice the size of my former self. I always wore my shirts big, so those still fit. Even more sadly, I thought my once 116 pound self was fat. Honey, I did not know from fat. If I got back to weighing that much, I'm afraid I'd have to call myself "deathly sick." It ain't gonna happen. And if it did, it would just sag down to my feet. Time is a bastard.

Looking back on that mixed up undiagnosed bipolar headbanger child, I think what she really needed was some guidance and someone to listen to her. She had damn good taste in music though!

I hope that the bipolar gene never activates in my son. Seriously, the fucking thing is like a time bomb. Normally it onsets at puberty but there are things that can trigger its activation later in life. I hope for his sake he never has to find out what it's like.