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WALK A MILE IN MY HIKING BOOTS

Topic: what it's like to be your Grandmother's age and still feeling no older than thirty. The view from the summit is that old age is only a number......the number of footsteps that it took to climb the mountain. That's all it is......ever! No matter what our exterior may look like, our psyche still feels young.

An Upper Realm Opinion About Big Business

April 30th, 2010

What Do You Think Of Big Business and Corporations In The World Today?

“They are inevitable and they are neutral as far as the company, itself, goes. But the problem lies within the hearts and within the scope of the individuals in charge. Negatively-oriented people create mini-dynasties with power or riches as their only goal. So the absolute measure of a country or a corporation is determined by the spiritual character of the human beings making it up.

A corporation is actually neither physical nor spiritual. It’s an amalgamation of effort towards a certain goal, and it has a personality engendered by the philosophy that guides its actions. This is a volatile sort of personality because it can sometimes be changed. Inevitably, its character plays out throughout its existence as a force of progress or a force of expedience for its owners.

And this is really a magnification of its corporate identity, made up of fallible and mallable human beings. So, big business is simply the result of national and global growth and it cannot be prevented. As society expands, so will its problems or its assets. The good ones will endure; the negative ones will surely create problems but will eventually fall under their own weight. So, I have no opinion, except that they must exist in global societies and they are thermometers by which I measure the health of the communities on the planet.”

This is a quotation of The Holy Spirit about the current state of modern business. It’s an excerpt from my new, soon-to-be published book, In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realm Answers Questions About Earth.

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A Quote From My New Book – Two Possible Questions Behind Creation

April 26th, 2010

This is a small sample from my new book: In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realms Answer Questions About Earth. I have been very busy lately, finishing up the manuscript and getting it ready for the printer. We have had delays, but I’m hoping that the book will soon be in my hands and also available for sale on the internet and in major bookstores. I’ll let you know when that happy day arrives. Meanwhile, you can find a few chapters showing up here from time to time.

 TWO POSSIBLE QUESTIONS BEHIND CREATION

Creation might simply be the result of two questions which arose in the Mind of God, Who is also known as The Great Creative Force, long before He had begun His creating. Pondering His own perfection, He wondered how He, Himself, would deal with the intricacies and challenges of being contained within a limited material existence. There was only one way to find out, so He began to separate off tiny particles of His own Mind to form the consciousness of all matter. Soon, there was a universe to populate with Beings, each of which contained a measure of The One Consciousness. Now the experiment could begin and God asked the First Question:

1. How would I behave under any given situation?

Then, He began to watch Himself. His creatures had free will to behave as they wished, only being required to operate within the limits imposed by their physical situation.

Then, God asked the Second Question:

2. “Could I, would I, be able to turn around and recognize Myself from inside of all those given situations? Would I even be capable of belief in God when I could not clearly see through the murk of materiality?”

The experiment has been going on for a long time. What would you say that the answers to those two simple questions have turned out to be?

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Creator, Creator, Creator! Create! Evidence Of A Praying Bird?

April 15th, 2010

I have this wise little male Cardinal living in my yard who calls out to The Creator throughout the day.  Sometimes, he just calls our His Name, “Creator! Creator! Creator!,” and other times, he also throws in the strong command to Create!”Creator, Creator, Creator, Creator! Create!”

Once in awhile, the “Create” on the end of the string of names, sounds like a question as it inflects upward at the end of the sentence. He has a clear and vibrant, no-nonsense voice.

His dowdy little brown wife sings another version very fast and with an accent. Her song sounds like “Creeder, creeder, creeder.” I’ve never heard her add the “Create!” to the end of her sentences.

For months, I simply enjoyed hearing him singing his prayers in the oak trees in my yard, but one day, I surprised us both by answering with my own copy of his call. I could hear him stop to take stock of this new bird in the yard. Then, he began to throw his math at me by increasing the number of times he repeated the word Creator, varying it between one and five repetitions. I would copy his string, exactly.

Then, he changed to the Spanish Cardinal language: “Creat-TOR!” with that little tongue-twirl on the last syllable.

I enjoyed the idea that our two species were communicating. We usually had long conversations this way.

But, it is springtime, and perhaps my fine-feathered friend was simply uttering up his mating prayer asking for the ability to create many new little Cardinals. Perhaps he didn’t welcome the idea of another singer in his yard, sounding like a male in tone and verse.

I believe that this might be the case because the side mirrors on both of our vehicles soon became the subject of much attack. Now I’ve had to cover them with plastic bags and rubber bands to prevent the inevitable white bird droppings down the side of the doors and the evidence of wing smudges on the windows, as he tries vainly to get a toehold at the base of the mirrors in order to attack this beautiful red rival.

He tends to bash his beak on any sort of reflection of himself, whether it is a patio door or a shiny mirror left outside. So, I think I must leave off this thought of literal communion with nature and let him have his little wife all to himself. Maybe if I start saying “Creeder, creeder, creeder!” he wouldn’t be so upset.

But, she would!

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Finding Fellow Travelers From My Hammock

April 7th, 2010

I have just spent the last few hours enjoying the late afternoon sun stretched out in a Nicaraguan hammock slung in the big oak tree in my front yard. I laughed aloud, chuckled softly, cried from time to time, nodded and “um-hummed” as I recognized myself in all of the brief stories I was reading in the new book propped on my chest. Sunshine and the shadow of a banana tree leaf moved gently across the page. Children played in the park nearby, birds sang. Life felt good and I felt surrounded by a world-full of friends who were all sharing the magical moment when they first had heard the Voice of God within their own quiet head.

My guide on this personal exploration of inner life was DavidPaul Doyle, author of When God Spoke To Me: The Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who Have Received Divine Guidance And Wisdom who saw his book go to the top of the charts and become a bestseller as soon as it was released. I’m only halfway finished with reading it, and I can certainly understand why it has become so instantly popular. Think of every great inspirational Reader’s Digest or Guideposts story that has ever brought a catch to your throat or a tear to your eye and then multiply that by more than seventy and you will get some idea of the power of this book.

However, each story is kept to the theme of a personal moment when God spoke, individually, to that person, whether in actual words or pointed coincidence, a great wash of feeling or a rainbow-colored, feather-shaped cloud in the sky. If a formal religious affiliation is even mentioned, it’s only in passing, if there’s a reason to include it in the story. The book proves that it is not necessary to belong to any particular creed to have a long-term, one-on-one, love affair with God or The Holy Spirit. Nobody is “witnessing” here and most are opening up in print for the very first time.

His first book,The Voice For Love: Accessing Your Inner Voice To Fulfill Your Life’s Purpose, had such a profound impact that Doyle and his wife, Candace, now travel the world speaking and teaching others how to hear God’s Voice for themselves. Soon, many people offered their own personal stories of moments when their lives changed forever because of this unmistakable connection. They are not testimonials of what happened as a result of the book, but are all over the map in method and background. It seems that this is happening to people in great numbers. Maybe it has been, all along, but only recently have the means been invented for us all to get our heads together about it.

That has certainly been true for me. Here, I thought I was so daring to make such a claim! And now, I look around and find out that it’s a MOVEMENT and I’m well in the back of the pack with the book I’m planning to release in May…or whenever the interminable publishing process finally completes. In case you hadn’t heard by reading my previous posts, the name of my second book is In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realm Answers Questions About Earth. Someday, I hope that DavidPaul Doyle will help me introduce my book to the world because we certainly are talking about the same thing. I’ll send him a hot-off-the-press copy of it and hope he will see fit.

In the meantime, I plan to submit my own story of awakening because he has a back page inviting people to do just that. Surely, that’s how this second book came about. The many authors of When God Spoke To Me are all of the regular people who responded to that request the first time around. After the one-page introduction, DavidPaul stays in the background and lets them talk – story after heart-touching story.

This is a good, non-religious, highly-spiritual book…but I notice many testimonials which say it’s used in sermons. Trust me, you’ll like it. More and more, I will inevitably become a funnel to recommend some of these great wide-open Godly books because my marketing research is bringing me into contact with them. It’s a huge, fantastic flood…and nobody’s trying to convert any more. That’s passe’. That’s so yesterday! They are all saying: “Go inside of your own head, your own heart and listen!” This is so refreshing! Believe me, that method works!

I’m still reading Robert Schwartz’ Your Soul’s Plan that I reported on in my last post. It is just as wonderful in an entirely complementary way, and it opens another subject which I mention in my own book: how we plan the details of our life before birth. When you get to that website, be sure to move your cursor over the box that says ABOUT THE BOOK. It will lead you to many more pages of his great website.

Three more books along the same line, wait on my desk for reading, so watch this space for more adverts. But now that my own formatted book manuscript is ready for proofing, the only book I’ll be reading in the next few weeks will be my own. However, due to this new internet book recommending channel I have found, I shall probably continue to order many great volumes to wait until I come up for air. I’ll probably need an entire year to lie in my hammock doing nothing but reading, crying, and chuckling. Yay!

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Life Rocks…And So Do These Books!

March 25th, 2010

A week from today, on Thursday, April 1, lots of family and friends will gather on my deck/patio for a big, happy reunion. We are praying that it will finally be predictably warm and also that the weather will not interfere with flight schedules. Some prognosticators are predicting one more blizzard to cripple things again before Mother Nature calms down for the season. My daughter and family will arrive this week and clear flying weather would definitely be a good thing. My brother-in-law, has just spent two days trying to fly between Florida  and Colorado, thanks to a howling snowstorm.

My house-redecorating has pretty much stabilized, but life is busy trying to deal with publishing matters and my new and intensive teleseminar course about book promotion and marketing. However, that is leading to some surprising new friendships. I am discovering a very large web of like-minded thinkers by doing the internet research that is necessary to my marketing plan. I’m certainly not alone in Hearing The Voice of God, or in my case, The Holy Spirit. This is the hot new topic in the book world today and it will probably swell to the same crescendo as did the subject of Near Death Experiences when the first life after death books began to hit the news.

I have now cyber-met two authors whose books have just become bestsellers in this genre and I am in a flurry of email communication with each of them. Both of their opened books (Your Soul’s Plan and When God Spoke To Me) are upon my desk, filling my few spare moments during this very busy week. But, I can’t leave either book alone and it’s actually fun to mix the reading of them, picking up whichever one is the closest at hand. Though I’m nowhere near finished reading either one, I can emphatically and heartily recommend them to you:

The first one is Robert Schwartz’s Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born (www.yoursoulsplan.com) which is so convincingly written that you can, for the first time, imagine that you, yourself, are actually the one who wrote the blueprint for the life you are now living. The author has selected a handful of the number of actual cases that he investigated using four very talented psychics and channelers to access the moments before birth spent actually planning: physical illnesses, deafness and blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, death of a loved one and accidents, to happen during the course of a life on Earth. Through contacts with their spirit guides, each individual interviewed was able to recreate the pre-birth counseling session to learn of the spiritual goals, which the soul had set out to accomplish through hardships on the material plane.

I already knew quite a lot about pre-birth planning. At least, I knew that it existed and why… from my own interviews with The Holy Spirit, and that is covered in my new book, In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realm Answers Questions About Earth (coming out later this Spring). But I found the details about how this actually plays out in real people’s lives, very fascinating and confirming. Robert Schwartz writes so well about a complex subject and he clearly has a deep understanding of the spiritual realities concerning reincarnation. I am constantly filled with admiration for the quality of focus that he brings to each individual case.

I share his curiosity and thirst for subjects along this line and I know the privilege and great luxury of being in touch with a Higher Consciousness willing to answer any question put to It. However, Schwartz curbs his own personal enthusiasm, and extensive background knowledge of the whole subject in general, and hones in with questions specific to the life of the person under discussion, who is also in on the interview. Then, between case histories, he uses his keen understanding to fill the reader in on this completely unknown facet of behind-the-scenes administration of human reincarnation. There is solid evidence that our life events are not accidental.

This book is making huge waves and has already been translated into an impressive number of languages. Your Soul’s Plan has already garnered a long list of testimonials from some very important individuals and publications. Please go to Robert Schwartz’s website or to Amazon.com and order this book. It will revolutionize your thinking.

Next post, I will fill you in on DavidPaul Doyle’s book, When God Spoke To Me. (www.thevoiceforlove.com). (Amazon.com) I have already dubbed him the Weaver of Basket-Cases, because reading the many short, beautiful stories reduced me to helpless tears and I became such a basket-case of sobbing emotion. If you like to cry, this is the book for you!

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What Did I Finally Wind Up Saying In Revealing My Private Life?

March 16th, 2010

On February 9th, I wrote my blog about having to sit down and figure out how to introduce my new book, In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realm Answers Questions About Earth. Since this is my first attempt to go public about the fact that I have had an ongoing conversation with an invisible Being, Whom I refer to as The Holy Spirit, I was admitting to feeling a little awkward about being candid about my private life.

I now share with you the preface that will appear in my book, for better or for worse:

I write this preface just before sending the manuscript to the publisher. These are the final moments to pull such startling material back from a brink where I, unexpectedly, now find myself. For three decades, I have been a closet clairaudient, carrying on a rich life of communication with unseen Upper dimensions, speaking to The Holy Spirit through my spiritual persona, Linda Layli, Layli Linda, with no plans at all to go public. My copious journals will remain private but the following questions and answers now seem to be timely and of interest to a general audience.

Thirty years ago, life for me was turned upside down when I began “hearing Voices.” I went through several predictable stages, including a brief hospital stay and a label of Schizophrenia. Alarmed, with children to raise, I managed to squelch the inner sound track which was interfering with my daily life. I then continued a normal routine with no counseling or medication. That held steady for fifteen years but in 1995, the lid blew off again when I realized that I could, very clearly, hear a Voice in my head. This time, I listened but didn’t tell anyone

Thus, began my double life. No confessions this time. After the initial rocky stages settled down, I learned that these are the traumatic symptoms of an inner hearing channel being opened. I was merely becoming clairaudient, not going crazy. As this book explains, there are often disturbing inner levels which newly-awakened souls must traverse, in order to escape a minefield of negative entities hovering within the planet‘s astral layer. It’s my theory that some people who are considered crazy might simply be stuck in this tricky psychic realm close to the Earth’s surface. That’s one of my reasons for sharing this material.

I owe so much to authors who have put themselves on the line bringing understanding about hidden realities: Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying; Dr. Raymond A. Moody, Jr., Life After Life; and Dr. Joel L. Whitton, Life Between Life, all published groundbreaking studies of near death experiences, making it possible for so many to confess their secret afterlife moments. No, I never died. Michelle Belanger, author of Psychic Vampire Codex, took the risk of revealing her own energy-vampire reality and helped many people who have that same condition, as well as those who might have been victimized by it. No, I am not a vampire of any sort. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God, made it wildly acceptable to speak directly to God. Yes, I do speak to God, Whom I address as The Great Creative Force, but mostly, I communicate directly with The Holy Spirit. Every time someone steps out of his comfort zone, and shares his delicate secrets, it helps someone else to do the same thing.

My co-author, The Holy Spirit, has been very much involved in every step of this book production, but has let me decide whether to come totally out of the closet, or to allow my spiritual name, Linda Layli, Layli Linda, to cover for me. That’s the way it has always been between us. As the living human on the planet, I’m not a puppet but must sink or swim, muddling along in my own fashion and making my own decisions. I was never instructed to deliver this information in the first place. I simply find it interesting and believe that others will too. This must be the same culminating point that each of the courageous authors listed above reached while finalizing their own manuscripts, knowing what a firestorm it might kick up. I am so very grateful that they followed their hearts and let their record stand, no matter what the consequences.

Surely, your overriding question at this moment must be: “How does she know that her Inner Voice is that of The Holy Spirit?” I simply figured it out. There was no annunciation and without clairvoyance I do not see within; but I have always been deeply in love with God. I had been talking away to Him for many decades without expecting to hear anything in reply. The dramatic opening of my hearing channels at age forty-two meant that I was suddenly open to contact by the unhappy earthly psychic level mentioned above. It’s my conclusion that humans, experiencing a sudden ability to hear within, must first deal with this confusing swamp of renegade consciousnesses. So I found myself, out of habit, holding the Hand of The Holy Spirit to help me get through the confusion. It wasn’t much different from the way that I’d been living my life all along, happily praying like a trusting child. Only now I could hear answers in reply.

I have a theory that each person who establishes an auditory connection with the Other Side is solely responsible for the personality which that Voice will eventually settle into. Whomever I had assumed the speaker to be, early on, would be the role that the Voice would take, because I had signaled the level that I was willing to accept. A friend became frightened by a Voice announcing Itself to her inner mind and would not listen until she made peace with the idea that she was only hearing her own higher self. She now happily discusses personal matters with an inner Claudia. Others might clue into a name such as Ramtha or Seth and learn profound teachings from the past. I feel sure that these personalities are all representations of the same Great Consciousness coming to us on whatever terms we will allow. So we human receivers write the ticket, and from then on, our prayers and conversations go to whatever address we put on the spiritual envelope.

Just as I was free to decide for myself the identity of my Inner Speaker, I give you the freedom to speculate about my conclusions. If you believe that these answering words are only coming from King Kong, that’s okay with me. But you’ll have to agree that He’s a plenty smart gorilla.

Please also understand that this conversation covers a twelve-year period, so it may not always flow in a logically unfolding pattern. Some background information might not be covered until the latter chapters because their subjects are too complicated to present at the beginning. Consequently, this book’s contents resemble an upended puzzle box rather than a body of knowledge that can be tied up in a neat little bow. However, a few pieces do fit together nicely. May you have good luck in finding them.  

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Life’s Changes Happen Suddenly

March 7th, 2010

Unexpectedly, things were changing, one after the other. It did start with my sister’s sudden death and Valentine’s Day week filled with funeral arrangements and a quickly-arranged family reunion. But, since Kippy didn’t live with me, it’s hard to see any connection to the continuing frenetic activity. Let’s see if I can figure this out myself…why I still haven’t caught my breath after almost a month of a life in rearrangement mode:

My book, IN SECRET DIFFUSION, has been at the publishers for three weeks now. The final version of the manuscript was sent out on Valentine’s Day, the same weekend that Kippy died. I wanted it to be finished by the time she visited me so that I could concentrate on our activities, though she died before we got together. The cover took a week or two longer to finalize, but that amounted to bouncing versions back and forth between me and the artist, until we got a wonderful, most beautiful, result. Now, that artwork is being married to the entire front and back cover template and any day, I will receive an electronic version to approve or tweak. But it’s in good hands and I know that I will love our final result. Also in competent professional hands is the interior of the book which is being formatted to industry standards. At some unknown date in the near future, I’ll be sent an electronic proof copy of the entire formatted book which I must then carefully read and either correct or give my final approval. When I sign off on it, my book will go to press and I will wait eagerly for my first bound copies. Once we have such a lift-off, my application will wend its way through the Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, and many other online booksellers, as well as the vast catalogs and distributors of books to bookstores, libraries, and public outlets. This will possibly culminate around the middle of April and I will be listed for everyone to see.

Right now, most of that operation is out of my hands and requires only short bursts of attention.

But back in January, I had initiated the marketing efforts for this new book, having learned that things happen slowly, or not at all, if one does not put great effort into publicizing and marketing a book. For my first one, HEY BOOMERS, DUST OFF YOUR BACKPACKS, I did a bit of marketing but mostly took my own advice and dusted off my own backpack for a four-month exploration of South America. Even so, that little book has climbed to #100 in the Senior Travel category on Amazon.com all by itself. Where would it be if I had given it the attention it deserved?

This time for this book, which has required me to ‘fess up about a long-hidden secret of mine: the fact that I (gasp!) Hear Voices…and that (double gasp!!)… I insist that it is The Holy Spirit to Whom I speak… This time, I am stepping onto the gangplank and am willing to jump into the unknown sea of having to quantify what it is that I’m talking about; while learning how to say anything at all about it; to possibly my greatest nightmare of Doubting Thomas’s, which I will deliberately attract to myself through these very marketing efforts. It is a weird and strange, self-shooting circle of which I have already experienced the briefest glimmer of someone’s rude behavior.

Anyway, I’ve joined a very competent group of authors taking a highly-intensive online training course from a proven marketing coach who teaches the ins and outs of modern internet marketing…definitely NOT spam…and my first few weeks of lessons taught me one thing that wasn’t in the course. I needed a dedicated work/study space for this, that was separate from my writing desk. There was just no room for both operations on the same desk. That realization led to a trip to my favorite thrift shop in the whole wide world on a mission to find the right furniture to get myself into business mode.

For years now, I have bemoaned the space-hogging sleep sofa that dominated my small living room and the large round dining table that fought constantly for primacy. Both had to go! The first tug on this sweater-thread came in the form of a lovely rectangular oak dining table that could also double as a desk. The second, third and fourth tug followed soon after in the form of a marble-topped corner cabinet, a rolltop desk and a smaller sleep sofa. Kaboom! Delivery was set for the first of last week. The old sofa and table would be carted away when the new ones arrived.

But I didn’t leave that sweater-unraveling alone at that. No, I had to go all the way down the pike to an injured knee and a remodeled kitchen. You see, there was this fine, double-doored freezer/fridge there for only $200, when they sell for $2000 originally. I’d long been wanting to get rid of my old refrigerator, if only to be able to clean behind it. It was wedged into a cramped place, but also its motor always seemed to be revving high and that was suspicious. The new one was an inch and a half too wide, but my dear neighbors, Walt & Dottie, came with me to inspect it and Walt declared that he could saw my cabinet and help me install the new one. Deal!

However, I got the bright idea that as long as the refrigerator was out of its spot, why didn’t I take the lifetime opportunity to re-tile the dark brown kitchen floor? I had done that years ago on another house. Self-stick tile makes it sooooo easy, as I recalled. And then, of course, once the old fridge was out it became obvious that I was going to have to paint the walls as well. My sweater-unthreading went on all last week, with kitchen stuff piled in the living room and cleaning, painting, floor preparing going on rapidly so that we’d be ready for the furniture delivery truck last Tuesday.

Working on the floor so long, albeit perched on a small stool, caused my right knee to flare up and get water on its little old brain. It does this now and then, but this time, Nurse Dottie insisted on a doctor’s visit and that led to an MRI. The doctor rarely sees me and took that opportunity to put me back in her diagnostic system, which is already starting to consume time. Meanwhile, Walt finished laying my tile. Bless him. Bless both of them – the best neighbors in the world.

By Thursday, my Business Kingdom was remarkably together. My kitchen is gorgeous; my floor is shiny celery green, and the fridge works perfectly. Thank goodness…it’s always a gamble when you buy second-hand. I sit at my new desk, aka my oak dining table, and survey a serene and happy space. I feel good about myself. I’m ready to take on my first radio interviewer: a forty-minute taped session with Rob McConnell of the Xzone Radio, in Canada, who has been interviewing the paranormal for many, many years. Surely, he won’t think I’m so strange. I had already sent material about my book and myself and a few suggestions for questions. I was psyched and looking forward to it, so glad that my heavy-duty house conversion was behind me and my knee could now be pampered. Talking on a phoned interview about my favorite subject would be a piece of cake. Right?

Wrong! I think I rattled poor Rob’s little brain. He wound up practically yelling at me when I said, quite honestly, that I couldn’t prove that I was talking to The Holy Spirit. “How are you going to sell any books if you can’t PROVE that fact?” Ummmm, I’m not going to sell any books anyway with this interview because they won’t even be available for six weeks. He rattled my little brain though because I didn’t think of the many good comebacks until after he had suspiciously-quickly terminated the interview. Now, if I can’t even talk to the liberal-minded, what a rocky ride I’m in for here. I have some homework to do to try to figure out how to handle these blind alleys.

Hey, has anybody ever been able to even prove the existence of God yet? I don’t think so. Why didn’t I say that to him? Ah well, he taught me a lot anyway.

But serendipity came to my rescue yesterday when I got into a long conversation at the beauty parlor with a lovely lady named Margarita who absolutely GOT what I was saying and can’t wait to buy the book. I never chat with the other customers while I get my hair cut! She didn’t have an appointment, but got in for a permanent anyway. Timing. Serendipity. A new InterGalactic Friend discovered.

And again, we’re off to the races.

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The First Three Letters of Funeral Spell “Fun”

February 21st, 2010

My younger sister, Kippy, unexpectedly died a week ago. Well, she had been talking about dying…planning on dying, for at least fifteen years. She caught onto the idea at Mother’s funeral in 1995, when we had such a good time at the graveside service telling lovely stories about our family matriarch, laughing, singing and praying in celebration of her steadfast and gentle, artistic life.

Kippy, whose mental age was fixed at about six-years-old, asked my other sister, Ann: “When I die and go to Sky of Heaven, you tell stories about me?” Being a staunch Baptist, Kippy also took literally every good promise of having a pain-free body and being able to do all those things that were now forbidden to her on Earth. That would include drinking buckets of coffee and tea to satisfy her serious caffeine addiction, as well as endlessly riding her beloved horses; a delight which she had enjoyed well into her fifties, before she tipped and slid slowly off the saddle to the ground, harming three vertebrae and ending that career.

In Sky of Heaven, nobody has to grow old. She couldn’t wait. She began to bequeath all of her possessions, verbally writing her Will whenever Ann and I were nearby. “When I die, give my beltloops belt to Michael,” or any one of the strapping young men helping out in the group home. There was nothing better than leather, especially tooled leather, in Kippy’s estimation…unless it was sweet-smelling soap. Every possession was given to a hundred different people over the years while she waited for the moment when she would be wafted off to that Great Bye and Bye, a place which she always indicated with a thrust of a finger pointed upwards.

And over the years, that death date was constantly kept about three years ahead in time. Every New Year’s Day, we would always notice that the date had somehow been bumped up again. Finally, Kippy fixed the date as 2009 and stuck with it. Nope! Nothing happened and we were just planning a 2010 Valentine’s Day weekend together. Though she lived in an Assisted Living Center in Plant City, I brought her home to Clearwater about once a month to go to the beach; go out to eat; run up to Tarpon Springs to buy a new sweet soap supply; or just sit around and watch her favorite vintage cowboy movies on dvd.

We were all set to do that last Saturday, but she had a fall, skidding around a corner in the group home, and wound up with a fractured shoulder bone. We cancelled the visit and reset it for March. That night, she ate dinner as usual, got slipped a rare cup of coffee by a kind nurse, (she usually resorted to stealing them off the trays of the helpless elderly residents…she was a wiley caffeine addict, after all, from whom I always had to secure my tea bags and coffee jars). She went to bed happy and never woke up. Just like that. What a way to go at age almost sixty-eight! Can’t do it any cleaner than that!

Kippy was a character; sometimes a nuisance, (she talked non-stop),  but she was often very funny and original. Anecdotes accumulated around her throughout her life. She garnered fans of her pithy sayings and witticisms. She was very generous in allowing other people, places and things to share in the use of the Letter K, always stating “I not mind, they use my Letter K.” And she even allowed others to call themselves Kathleen, as well. I doubt if she had to share her nickname very often. That was pretty singular.

So you can just imagine what would happen when thirty friends and far-flung family members gathered at her graveside Thursday, to see her off. Some folks wore blue jeans and cowboy clothes; as did she, boots and all. We told our stories and laughed and lingered long, then gave away her treasured objects in an old-fashioned potlach, like the Indians used to do at death. After that, we went to a nearby restaurant to indulge in one of Kippy’s favorite activities – eating out – for another two hours; this time, to catch up on each other.

I’d like to include here just one of the things read at her fun-eral. My son’s vision of what must have happened on that Saturday morning when Kippy woke up in Heaven:

   Kippy Awakens To The Smell of Wood smoke In The Fresh Morning Air…  

 A light, cool breeze rustles the long, lush meadow grass upon which her sleeping bag lies, bringing with it the sounds of horses tethered not far away; soft whinnies and the clinking of bits and metal fittings.

There is a creak of leather from right beside Kip. She turns her head. A man has crouched down next to her, holding out a big dented metal cup of hot, strong coffee.

It’s Jesus. He resembles a kindly Clint Eastwood, only with a beard and long hair. His head is covered by a big Stetson – worn and faded by sun out on the range. His vest and gun belt are of the finest quality leather, as Kippy instantly notes, covered with many a decorative filigree and silver accent. His boots also meet with her approval.

“Mornin’ Miss Kippy,” says Jesus, handing her the fresh black, aromatic coffee. “Welcome to Sky of Heaven. Reckon we’re all right pleased to have you stay about as long as you care to” he says with a big smile.

The sun has now fully risen and its warmth and light fill the little mountain valley. Jesus says: “Looks like a fine day for horseback riding….”

                                                      Douglas Randolph (Randy) Brown

                                                               February 13, 2010

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Closet-Clairaudient Unveiling

February 9th, 2010

The past few weeks have been busy as I prepare my manuscript, IN SECRET DIFFUSION, for the publisher. This book represents a coming out of a closet – the clairaudient closet – which has been my happy little home for the past thirty years. Granted, I have been opening up to you…my friends on the blog… for almost two years and that has helped me find my voice.

Isn’t it funny? I have an active inner life with a Voice…but, I, who can speak glibly and naturally about many things…have so much trouble confessing this inner self, finding my voice, externally. That is reflected in the whole process of getting this book ready to print, especially today’s duty of writing a preface. I find myself with such a stiff and formal voice, while the entire book (a conversation with The Holy Spirit) is so relaxed and easy-going. I want to match that mood in this necessary explanation but it isn’t flowing yet.

Probably, any Closet-Coming-Out-Of isn’t a whole lot of fun. You were in there for a reason. Most of that reason lies with the expected change of opinion that might register in the hearts of friends, family, and strangers. Something that is important to you; some road you have chosen to go down; some delight that you hide in your heart…is about to become up for grabs in the marketplace. That’s scary.

But, if it’s really nothing to be ashamed about.  If it’s simply something that is misunderstood, or lumped into a generic pool with an off-center reputation; especially, if it’s something that Jane Doe doesn’t do and therefore doesn’t approve of, then it’s more comfortable to keep it to yourself. On the other hand, it’s real interesting. It’s a real curiosity, that you would love to be able to explain to others and in the process, examine a little more closely. As it is, everything is hard to see clearly in a dark closet.

So, anyway, I had all of this secret written material building up over these many years, giving me a wistful dream of being able to put it into print – someday. Plus, I had learned how to write and publish books. A delightful way to put a heavy demand upon your time and talents which then allows you to hold the resulting book in your hand, in a form that can be shared with others.  Happy day! I started to write my second travel book about my explorations in South America and then I discovered that there really wasn’t enough to say about that. It was a beginning, but not a whole book. Now what?

Hmmmmm! There was my spiral-bound, homemade print job, which I called Questions & Answers, written in 1998 and shared with only about twenty trusted people, so far. It was my Barbara Walters-type of interview session with my constant Upper Voice Companion, The Holy Spirit, in which I had asked all sorts of questions, as if he were a guest on my talk show. I asked about everything…until I ran out of topics. I even started inviting a few friends to suggest new topics, but they only wanted boyfriend advice and that wasn’t my idea of a good cosmic question. Some answers I received from the Holy Spirit were really unexpected and lots of new and surprising information came out of those sessions.

Twelve years went by. Even my family hadn’t read it.

Hmmmmm? Questions and Answers??? I was all dressed up with nowhere to go. I had a publishing contract, but didn’t have a book anymore, with the Southern Hemisphere on hold. Hmmmmmmm?  What can I lose?

I could ask more questions – having thought of new ones in the past dozen years.

I could publish anonymously. Under my spiritual name, Linda Layli, Layli Linda. Don’t laugh!

That way, I could still have my hassle-free, solitary life without having to turn into anybody’s guru, my biggest fear. Which I have recently talked myself down from by reminding myself that I sound like the teenager who doesn’t want to date because she’s so afraid everyone will want to marry her. But, her friends are thinking “That’s not going to be a problem…” yet not wanting to say anything to hurt her feelings. Here I am, so vigorously trying to keep the world guru-free. At least, by one less new pop advisor. “Ummmm, that’s not going to be a problem” you might be wanting to say to me right now.

Then, after actually putting together a very decent manuscript (in my opinion), which my very own sister, a hugely competent English teacher, copy edited for me, in a most kind and open-minded manner; and my backup copy editor, of a New Age inclination, became wildly enthusiastic; I figured that this closet emergence might not be so bad, especially if I hid behind my Upper name, which actually is what I am called in that Realm.

Then, came time to face the marketing necessities. Even, admitting to the cataloging nightmare I could cause. Even the separate Amazon.com placements so that all my books couldn’t show up together if I used a different name. Even the ability to sell it on my blogsite because that would blow the secret right there, and anyway, Google already had me linked to this book because of these blogs.

So, now I’m coming clean and publishing with both names on the cover and my real name in the catalogs. This has been a tempest in my own little teapot, but a significant progression, none-the-less. Well I know too, that the last name of Brown is one of the three most common names in America, second only to Smith and Jones. So, I guess I already had that covered.

Now, I must leave off this confused confession and get busy writing that preface in which I will try to lay all this out without sounding really dumb. But, I now know just how all those other Closet-Comer-Outers have felt who decide to reveal a precious, hidden part of themselves to public scrutiny.

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It’s Best Not To Dance On Trains – For Any Reason – Exotic Or Otherwise

February 2nd, 2010

My last post promised to explain why I was lewdly teased when debarking from a Romanian train compartment back in 2002. If you haven’t read that blog yet, this one would mean more to you if you take a minute and check it out. Also, please read the attached comment to that blog sent in by my sister for whom I was, indeed, digging out this old material about Romania.

In my last blog, I was pulling into the Brasov, Romania, train station after having spent several hours in innocent conversation with a very nice man, Eugene. As we left our glass-fronted train compartment, a stoned guy in the hallway made suggestive comments in his native language. A few days later, in the lovely little village of Bran, site of the so-called, Dracula’s Castle, I had an insight into why he might have jumped to his conclusion. Of course, he seemed to be the sort of man who needed no real excuse to make such assumptions, so I could be wrong. Here is the rest of the story, from my point of view:

“Valentin led me up the mountain road to the Cabana Bran Castle and we talked over a cup of coffee while he tried to get me to hire him as a guide for the castle and a nearby stork sanctuary. Though I was intent upon going it alone, we had a happy conversation before saying goodbye.  He commented to my hostel hosts, Carmen and Coastal, that I was American, and that we are so independent. He explained that the English are so rigid, uptight, and always right; but that Americans are easy-going and love life more. “Americans are a lot more FUN!” It was an insight from one who has had many chances to observe both sorts of tourists. He’s right. I’m so easy-going that I “let it all hang out,” though with a modicum of ladylike dignity, I like to think.

Later, in my room, I thought about how this free-spirit behavior could well be misinterpreted by others. Especially, if it is actually “free SPIRIT.” Probably that disco man on the train had spotted me trying to demonstrate to Eugene, upon his request, how Those on Other Dimensions try to connect with us dull-witted humans. He might have seen me hopping around our glass-fronted compartment, trying to mimic the Holy Spirit or a guardian angel, buzzing away at the head of an Earthling, speaking in a high, frustrated hum: “Listen to Me! Just listen to Me! Open up! Turn your attention to My Voice!”

I was just zapping my fingers towards Eugene’s ears, describing what must have been behind the high-pitched sounds in my head, which I always, at first, thought were faulty fluorescent light bulbs in places like the library…quiet places, where I first became aware of this sound in my ears. Later, when I really listened, it took a little while for the sound to slow down enough for me to make out actual words being shouted at me by a very frustrated Upper Being. That’s how I came to realize that I could hear sensible Voices In My Head and because the subject had come up during this train conversation, I was trying to illustrate this concept to Eugene, there in the privacy of our compartment.

No Britisher, man or woman, would have done that, and very few, if any, Americans, I’ll bet! Probably disco man thought I was an exotic dancer giving my new Romanian friend a taste of what was to come. I never thought about that! I wasn’t touching his head, just zapping my fingers at it! But probably, exotic dancers aren’t allowed to touch, so I don’t imagine there was much difference!

My hips weren’t swaying. Does that count?”

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