divination – Leslie Sheridan

A Dream Awakening

My first dream I remember to this day because it was a precognitive dream of my high school friend, Spacey. I don’t recall the actual date – the recall came later after she had passed away.

Nearly a year after her transition I experienced my first visitation dream. That’s not to say I didn’t have any dreams before then, I just don’t recall any. In between these two dreams I had others including another precognitive dream, this one about an event in my future which came to pass. I recall these dreams with clarity to this day without having to consult a journal. In my experience visitations and foretelling dreams such as precognitive and prophetic are dreams or experience’s that stayed with me.

Since that first dream forty years ago, I continued to have dreams, some that I could recall without the aid of a journal to remind me. Although it was not precognitive or a visitation dream, I was learning to recall and remember my dreams. As soon as I recalled the dream, upon awakening or later in the day, I wrote it down on a scrap of paper. One scrap of paper with dream details on it eventually became an accumulation of pieces of notebook paper, backs of receipts or the envelope of a bill or junk mail that was within reach. I then knew it was time to get organized and buy a journal to put these into and continue writing down the details of my dreams. But the reason for writing my dreams down was that they began to increase in quantity and intensity.

I had become aware that I was having more than one dream a night. It didn’t take very long to fill up that first journal with my nightly dreams: nightmares, prophetic and precognitive, visitations, sleep paralysis and other helpful and interesting dream types. I had also filled the journal with doodles to illustrate what I could not always put into words and so that I could refer back to the dream later, especially if I had the dream again (recurring dream).

Recalling and journaling continued for a time. I shared my dreams with those I knew in an effort to share this new interest and to me, phenomenon. I don’t believe that I shared these dreams to start a conversation but that is exactly what happened…eventually. Some people thought it was a novelty, like when we all started to see psychics that became so popular to do in the 1990’s. Others thought dreams didn’t mean anything in particular and that maybe I was a bit odd. And then, sometime later, those same people began to share their dreams with me!

Not very long after I started to keep a dream journal, I went to a book sale and found Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s The Encyclopedia of Dreams: Symbols & Interpretations (Berkley edition, 1995). I needed it. The universe was telling me I was ready to start assembling the symbols and solving the message. This book had enough of the more common symbols to get me started on interpreting and understanding my dreams. I got some help from Shyla, a spiritual teacher and I learned to intuit what I could not find a symbol for either in the aforementioned book or a couple of dream dot com sites that I found on the internet in the late 1990’s. Ultimately, I learned to gather all the symbols and my intuition and go with what resonated with me. And that I feel is the most important component of dream interpreting. A bunch of dream symbols put together are just symbols. But, how does that feel to the dreamer? Does the dream symbol or symbols resonate? The meaning of the dream should be a good fit, after all, the message is specific to the dreamer.

The Universe has guided me through each stage of dreams: recalling, journaling and interpreting. Dreams have been one of the most enlightening lessons on my spiritual awakening path. They have become, for me, a helpful divination tool to download messages from my consciousness with the help of my guides and the universe. Being a teacher of dreams to others has been an unexpected gift. People I have helped like to have the dream interpreted for them, but I also want to teach and empower them to interpret their own dreams. And that is because the universe has a message for them.

*all photos by Leslie Sheraden

Channeling

Several years ago a friend invited me to a group meditation at the house of a friend of hers. The group meditation was to be followed by a channeling session. Meditation is not my forte because I usually fall asleep or recite a mental to-do list. I really wanted to be there to see what channeling was; I had heard of it before and I was intrigued, but I did not know what to expect.

Before the evening began and introductions were made, I expressed this to the woman facilitating the group meditation and channeling that night. In fact, the only channeling I had ever seen was in the movie, “Out on a Limb”, based on Shirley MacLaine’s book and starring her and the actual channel (depicted in the book as Kevin Ryerson). Watching that in the movie was riveting to me. So I wondered if this woman channeling would be just as interesting.

During the group meditation about fifteen people sat in chairs or on throw pillows scattered on the floor. Soft meditation music played, a single candle lit and the guided meditation begins. I cannot tell you what thoughts came to me. All I recall are the lights. My eyes were completely closed and I could see bright white flashes of light and then blue/green/magenta flashes of light. I knew that there was a single candle but it was not that bright. These flashing lights were dancing in the center of the room. I knew they were spirits, angels even. And I knew if I opened my eyes the lights would no longer be there. Keeping my eyes closed I enjoyed the light show. There was a lot of energy in the small living room. Angels, archangels, spirit guides and crossed over loved ones of everyone there that beautiful spring night.

After a break, the channeling began. I sat next to her but before she began she explained to me what would happen. And then the room became quiet until all of a sudden her body started moving, as if she was dancing in her armchair. A voice came through. It was her voice but with a slight, playful accent. The entity she channeled was known as ‘One’. ‘One’ greeted everyone, gave a short message and then opened it up to the participants for questions and guidance of a spiritual nature, generally. No one asked for the winning lottery numbers.

When it was my turn, I asked ‘One’ about the weight I was carrying around my waist and abdominal area, my solar plexus. No matter how much exercise I did the weight seemed to stay where it was. The answer I received was this. The weight is related to not being getting enough out of life. I was not getting out enough possibly because of some things happening in my private life. ‘One’ made a pulling motion from the channeler’s midsection to show pulling things out of the abdominal area to demonstrate what it meant. I understood. The solar plexus, the power chakra, is the body’s energy center for assertiveness, self-esteem and will power. I was grateful ‘One’ did not mention a serious health issue.

I just want to say another thing about channeling. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all conduits or channels of universal energy. I call it being in the ‘zone’ when I feel like I am on autopilot. And if you’re in the zone and you get a series of numbers, play them.

Seeing the Future

As we get ready to leave this year behind and look ahead to 2017 there will be wishes, New Year’s resolutions and goals that we will set for ourselves and try – not always unsuccessfully – to see through and attain. Career, love life and making or saving more money are the usual desires. We pray and hope that they will come to us. There is another way to clearly see what goals or dreams we should aim for and ways to find out how to begin achieving them. It’s something like magic. This process or tool is called divination.

Divination is a method for getting messages from the universe: God, angels, ascended masters, goddesses, saints and even the fairies. It’s okay if you don’t believe in any of them. It’s not required. But it may help to know who may be communicating with and helping you. There are different spiritual divination tools and some we use every day. There are dreams (the night time kind & day dreams – where we zone out), crystals, tarot cards, and meditation.

Carl Jung was the first to say that dreams came directly from Source and that they come to us while we sleep. He studied his dreams, symbols and archetypes and decoded them. From his research he identified what symbols and archetypes were and how to interpret dreams, the types of dreams and where they come from. He believed, unlike his mentor Sigmund Freud that the messages came to us – that they were not our unconscious thoughts – decompressing and de-stressing from the labors and events of our human day. So, through our dreams we receive symbols and archetypes (universal symbols for example mother, mountain and numbers). Every symbol has usually one or possibly two different meanings and is not always the same for each individual – it depends on the other symbols in the dream, the context of the dream and what it means to the dreamer. We can use intention to find the answer to a problem. Very simply say what you would like a solution for before you go to sleep and if the answer doesn’t come to you by the time you wake up, it will eventually come to you…when it is meant to.

The stereotypical picture of the gypsy fortuneteller with a scarf wrapped about her head staring into a crystal ball originated from a divination method called scrying. Scrying was popular for many thousands of years from the ancient Celts up until the early 20^th century. Scrying methods included mirror gazing, water viewing, fire gazing as well as crystal gazing. By staring into the crystal, mirror, water or fire, one could “see” what their future held.

The most popular divination tool for the last twenty plus years is the tarot card. Probably created in the 1700’s as a card game, it is now used by anyone who wants to foretell their future or divine answers and solutions to problems. Anyone can learn to read their own cards, however sometimes a more comprehensive card reading can come from a psychic/medium. They can “see” or “hear” what the average person cannot. And it’s fun and therapeutic at the same time.

Awareness is by far one of the best spiritual divination tools. And all we need to do is make sure that we are aware of signs: butterflies, birds, songs on the radio, and repetitive phrases and numbers to name a few. Hone your “gut” feelings and act on your intuition. You can incorporate your crystals or give yourself your own tarot card reading. A meditation practice also helps with awareness.

Set your positive intention, divine it –by whichever method you prefer –and then pay attention for the signs that your wish has been acknowledged and is being worked on by the angels, saints, a deity or even God or Source if you would rather use that name. The important thing is to choose which method works better for you for the manifestation of your dreams.