Remember to laugh.

Earlier this year I started studying. I was enjoy the practical aspect but not enjoying having to interact with people. As usual I end up attracting people through a sense of their curiosity of me. When I started, I made a pact with myself to not interact socially or otherwise more than necessary with my fellow students, more than I had to. That failed!

After the first day, other students wanted to exchange phone numbers etc, and I just went along with it. I find it hard to say no to people. As the weeks went on I began to suffer from panic attacks that got more and more severe. When I quit I told my teachers that I was suffering from the panic attacks triggered by all the stress from the study workload, but I lied. The truth was I felt like I was being bullied, by these two older women,  forced into taking on concepts they have imposed on themselves and therefore thought they knew better for everyone else.

I am a sarcastic and often childish person. I like to laugh at myself and accept all the flaws that are part of me. I don't get offended when people tease me, I don't get offended when people think I'm neither dumb nor smart. It rarely affects me. But these two ladies took it upon themselves to ensure that I would stop being myself and stop me from being who I was. I hadn't spoken to them or asked them for advice on the subject. This was unwanted and unnecessary advice given against my will. They both said to me that we will remind you and point out every time you are sarcastic, or self-deprecating.

It got to much. Imagine everyday when you come to work or come to study you have to face being lectured on how your actions are not appropriate because they deem it inapproriate.

Immediately after being told this regime they were forcing upon me, our teacher demonstrated how sarcastic and self-deprecating he was. Apparently they didn't feel the need to force him into changing his ways, just me!

These ladies had no sense of humour, my opinion of course. I rarely heard them laugh with hearty energy. Instead I heard sniggers and giggles. I love a good laugh, and enjoy making people laugh. I don't respect others who place their judgement on me and expect to have a good laugh at my expense without being able to take criticism about their flaws. I know what my flaws are, I point them out for everyone to see. I'm not a perfect! I am not vain.

My friends are not perfect. They have flaws. They have insecurities which we all share. I share my extremely, openly with them. I expose my big belly and not care if people think it's correct to show a fat belly when the norm says flat bellies are acceptable.

I enjoy laughing at my silly moments when I stumble, I fall. I will laugh at the insane things people do, their actions will always make me laugh more than any jokes they have regaled to me.

My point to this blog post is that don't take yourself too seriously. Stand your ground! Don't allow people to forced their edicts upon you or rally you into thinking they are right. What is right for one is not right for another. We can't all be whitewashed with the same brush. Love yourself and your family enough to know that you are enough for now. If you feel you need to be more than do more, but don't do it as a way to change to fit others views.

My name is Mary Ann, I'm over weight, I'm sarcastic, I'm not a healthy person by any means. I enjoy who I am!

Conversations with the dead.

A lot of mediums/psychics/readers/chanels will sooner or later, come across spirits, good and bad, who have passed over. I first started having dreams about people who passed over when I was about 13 years old. One of my favourite actors, River Pheonix, died of a drug over dose on Halloween night, 1993. I was a very impressionable 13 years old girl who was close to finishing her first year of high school.

I had watched a few movies that River Pheonix had starred in, but after his death, I was determined to see all of them. I was also very much intent on purchasing a biography about his life. I earned very little in terms of pocket money and had to save up for a few months, from lunch money, no school trips etc so I could afford the $30 biography.  I eventually bought the book, a few weeks before school let out for the summer break.

What spawned me into wanting more information about this particular actor was a set of dreams that I had, for three nights or so, in a row, I dreamt about him. All of my dreams since this initial conversation, have taken place in a interrogation room style scene. I don't know why, it may have something to do with my need to control the situation even in my subconscious. The first dream, I thought was just that, a dream where i was exploring my unexplainable grief, sure I had a crush on him as a teenage girl would idolise a Hollywood actor, but I could not explain my attachment.

He came along, as was introduced by a faceless person. River Pheonix sat down and seemed calm. He asked me to be seated on the opposite side of a small table. The room itself was painted in varying shades of gray. River was wearing loose cargo pants, a mustard coloured top, with a hoody or dark grey/ charcoal zip up style jumper, and a khaki coloured jacket. He had a couple of bracelets around his left wrist, the most significant seemed to be longer than the others, I believe there was 3 or 4 altogether, I didn't know it back then, but it looked like prayer beads of some sort. I don't believe he wore a watch though, as I read in his biography that he didn't want to be tied down to the mundane and make his life so predictable as to set an alarm. River wore his hair long, unkempt to his shoulders. His face, however, was beautifully smooth and free of fear.

When I was comfortable enough to talk to him, I asked him "Why?", as he has always been so anti-drugs. I don't remember the words he used, but I remember his nonchalant attitude and demeanor. He seemed to shake off my questions, but was more than willing to participate in the whole thing. I felt that I wasn't going to get any answers from him. It was only right at the end when he came forward across the table and asked me if I wanted to talk to him again the following night, I said yes and we agreed to meet up again in my dreams.

That's when I started to receive information that wasn't always related to him. At first I asked again why he felt he needed to use drugs, this time he was a little more willing to explain why. I'm not stating that this is at all factual, nor am I trying to convince you of the authenticity of my information, but for me, it was real enough. River motioned that it was the pain from deep inside him that lead him down that path. He has a great self loathing that couldn't be removed no matter how hard he tried to prop himself up.

We talked for several nights like this, not sure if dreams followed each other one night after another or if I had night after night of succeeding dreams about him. What I do know is that he empowered me to believe in what I saw, what I heard and what I felt. He told me that I could do this, it wasn't just a fairy tale and that I should just believe.

So, here, more than 20 years down the track, I do believe, I do talk to spirits in my dreams. I want the messages to come as easily in my dreams as any conversation I would have with a living person.

2013, all and sundry.

It's been a while since I posted a blog. But it's almost the end of the year, and I feel that I need to just summarise what my life has been like of late.

So my last entry was in May, around the time I started my massage therapy course, which has been put on hold and fully enrolled to start in January again. I had quit the course, as I suffer from bad panic attacks and my focus wasn't 100% on learning as I also had my good friends, high anticipated, wedding in November, with dress hunting and get togethers along the way. I also felt harassed by two older ladies in the course, who, in my opinion, seem to want to push their own doctrine on me, and didn't want to try and understand anyone elses way of thinking. My thoughts on that are, "Let people enjoy their own journey to spirituality. You can't push them forward to where you are.You can't make hold them back, waiting for you to catch up."

I, most likely, respond with either back off from people or pounce on those who are seemingly attacking me, I took the back off from the whole group of people. I have kept my distance until recently, when I've gone back and enjoyed a couple of free massage treatments, which I needed. I started to feel a little jumpy when I first went back, however, I talked with one of my old lecturers there and felt at home again. My nerves eventually left and I decided I need to go back no if 's or but's! I start again the week after Australia day long weekend. I can't wait, I've been practicing and enjoying treating my family. Learning more is just going to be so much fun.

My friends wedding was perfect! She looked amazing and I cried a little. I've known Heather since 1995, we shared a few classes together during high school, but it was only our after university class hijinks that allowed us to develop an amazing friendship. I was previliged enough to be asked to be one of her bridesmaids, and I made awful faces when people took photos and I have to stop doing that! The views during the ceremony, a little look out atop one of the mountains on the O'reilly's retreat. It was breath taking.

As you can see the views were spectacular, but nothing could take away from the beautiful bride.The cover of our page on facebook is this particular photo. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Southern-Fire-Northern-Ice/160394180732624

The wedding has been and gone, the bride and groom enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon.

Now it's time to put the focus back on two of my loves, spiritual work and learning.  I've began performing our free readings, and thoroughly enjoying the experience again. I had gotten a little disheartened after hearing from some clients that there were likers on the page who had been trying to spread lies about us. At the time, people hadn't realised that we also have a life beyond what is posted on our page and that my husband works full time plus over time hours that are needed. There were nasty messages being posted by a particular liker and after a long day at work or school, it left us with little sympathy to want to give away any free readings.

Our fans, friends and family are wonderful. We like being a little different. We're not perfect, far, far, far from it. We concede that we offer or plan to offer free readings, but due to circumstances out of our control we can't always follow through and we usually give everyone a heads up. We have a sense of humour about our spiritual work. We understand that not everyone knows everything about spirituality, psychic readings, and the big news is that we don't know everything either!

In essence, it's a learning period for us. And I highly believe that the key to experience is to gain knowledge and use that knowledge to help others out there and allow them to gain from your experience.

Don't allow others to suck the energy from you and replace with their toxic thoughts and energy. Protect yourself by wishing them well and surrounding yourself with your own good thoughts.

Reiki dreaming.

A few weeks ago while driving to a friends place, I remembered one of the dreams I had the night before. It was about Reiki. I believe it was a past life or I was viewing someone's story.

I was in Japan, which is the birth place of Reiki, and I was a man, being taught how to heal people by this kindly old person, I couldn't decipher if it was male or female, but their gender was not a factor. There felt like there was gender equality and therefore knowing the sex of another person was not needed.

I was wearing, what looked like, sumarai clothing. Admittedly I don't know or understand much about the Japanese culture, much like everyone else, it's a land of sushi, contradiction and cars, for me. As this man I felt a sense of pride and ownership of the area I was in. I had a sense of duty to find ways of heal and to learn from this older teacher, the ways they knew.

This is the story I am chanelling from the Samurai.

"My village was on the lower side of a mountain. The mountain itself was not great, but very beautiful with a distinct features, there was a plateau approximately 1/3 down from the peak, it angles slightly and then comes to the valley which rises up higher than the rest of the valleys in the area. This is where my village is. A stream flows on one side and we carry our goods over the stream to trade with other villagers. The stream is full of life and we catch fish to feed our families.

My village is not very rich, but we have all that we need. The health of my people is important to me. We are not one to become ill, but when a storm came, a bad wind came with it and many of my people were taken from us by the illness and we did not have the medicine to cure them. Many of them died before I could seek help.

It would be weeks before this elder teacher came looking for shelter offering his healing to my people. He carried with him a gnarled old cane that he used to support himself while walking.

I had started to cough and feel the fever, but I could not show my illness to the rest of the village. The elder came and placed his hands on my shoulders, closed his eyes and spoke to me. He told me to breathe deeply into my belly. I felt a strange energy coming from him. His hands grew warmer and warmer. They were so hot.

A few moments went by and he instructed me to open my eyes and breathe normally. The fever had abated, the cough was no longer. I was not completely cured, but he had helped me. I asked him to come and heal all the people in my village, their illness was greater than mine. He offered me an exchange of our shelter for his healing. I agreed.

We walked over to one of the villagers who has collapsed on his way to trading with nearby village. He lay beside the stream, near the bridge, delirious from fever and comforted by his children, waiting to die. The elder place his hands on the villagers chest and asked the children to be moved from their father. The villagers face was grey, almost green, he was sweating and his breathing was not strong.

This time, as I was now watching the elder heal this man, I saw his hands almost glow with a light coming from his palms. I asked him about this later and he said that only the ones with the true gift of healing can ever see the light when it is used.

The elder sat there for a long time healing this villager. He was explaining to me what the light meant, why he places his hands on the persons body. I had not known then, but he was teaching me how to heal other people. The elder told me that the breathing is very important, breath helps to take the healing energy to the parts of the body that human hands cannot touch. It travels deep inside the body to heal. The deeper the person can breathe, the more healing he can receive.

The villagers face slowly grimaced less as the pain of the fever was taken over by the healing light. I help the villager unto his feet and walked with him to his house, where his wife was able to nurse him further and give him food.

We walked around, healing each person that we came across, hearing their pleas for help, their coughs, their cries of pain from fever. The elder said that not all of the people will be saved, not will be healed, not all will be well again, but we will try. I asked why that could be when we were all aflicted by the same illness. The elder responded by saying that for some people it is their time, and that their journey with us has come to an end, for others, it is simply because they cannot accept that faith can heal just as easily as illness consumes.

That was my first lesson. Using the light that came from the sun I helped to heal my fellow villagers. The first person I healed was someone who had been struck by the illness quite early, I stayed with her feeling the heat from my hands as they lay on her chest. I felt her body go soft, her had died while I was healing her.

My teacher now consoled me. "Not everyone can be saved, it was the end of her journey. She had fought bravely and now will be given rest as she continues on the next plane."

These words comforted me a little but could not take away the sting of defeat, as I had hoped to cure her the way my teacher cured the others. I was not disheartened. I continued on with the next person. An elder in our village, someone who I would call upon when decisions were needed to be made to advance our village's future.

I held him and placed my hands on his chest. His body was so soft when I first held him. It was only after a few moments that I felt the strength of him again, he had become more alert, more aware. I asked him to breathe deep and with each breath he grew stronger.

The elder sat up, thanked me and walked away. I was unsure of what to think of why an old man, who has lived a long life deserved to live longer than a young girl who has only started. My teacher came to my and said, "We cannot place judgement on who lives and who should die. We can only heal. It is upon the healing that they will choose to stay or to move on. We simply give them the opportunity to choose to end their journey or continue. Your village elder holds so much knowledge that he wishes to continue passing this unto the younger people, while the young girl had fought for a long time to be here and felt that her energy was needed on the next plane where she can be of good to others."

I continued to heal, helping another 8 villagers, while I pondered what my teacher had just revealed to me.

This was the beginning of my journey as a healer. It is now your beginning. It is not for you to judge who receives it, it is for the person to decide if they will accept it."



Ok, so that was an interesting lot of channelling that I was not expecting. I just wanted to tell you guys about the Reiki dream I had, which was what this samurai just spoke about.

New phase

Rick and I have always had issues with our finances. Most of the times it's to do with our laziness and bad habit of eating out and not staying home. This new phas is more about practicality and health, with a little kick of finance.

Since quitting basketball in 2011 Rick had gained all the weight that he had lost during his time playing, so out of concern for his health, coinciding with monetary worries, Rick and I decided he should trial going to work using public transport. With my parents coming back, our home life and social life settling down, Rick has been taking the train and enjoying the walks. This will be our first month where we include, in our budget, money for the train and reducing the amount for the petrol.

Not only is Rick saving money by not using his car everday for work, he's also reducing his carbon footprint, which we all have to do now!

So we're spending the week days apart, Rick staying at my parents house which is right next to the Bray Park train station, and I'll be here at home enjoying the company of my furbabies.

First day, new experiences.

I just want to share my experiences during my first time working behind the counter of an awesome fish and chips shop at Jimboomba.

I went in early, because I can't help but not be nervous and excited at the same time. The nerves meant many pit stops to the toilet before I actually got to the shop. The excitement wouldn't wear off till I got home.

There were so many different people that came to place an order and take away their little packs of yummy goodies. A few familiar faces came along, they were caught by surprise to see me on the other side of the counter. There was a lady who came along, someone I hadn't expected to come in, order from me. This family had threatened mine onces upon a time and I felt uneasy at first, but I decided I wasn't the person they had tried to scare, I was the smiling, friendly person with my "training wheels", as I put it. I smiled, was friendly and gave her the best service I possibly could.

It was just a small gesture, however I thoroughly enjoyed connecting with this lady on a different level, in a different social scenario, and most without the emotions that should have stopped me from giving the best customer service.

I guess it goes to show that a mind manipulates how the body will react, no matter what situation.

Promo shoot.

Yesterday the 16th of February, Rick and I held our first Spirit Fest party, in conjunction with a promotional photo shoot, using competition winners and friends. It was a chance for us to showcase our talents and also give them a taste of the services we provide, as listed on our spiritual menu. 

I was a little nervous as we had a shakey start to the morning, our little Espiritu dog, Gucci. She had slept in the house with us and when we woke up we found an empty, chewed box of rat poison. So we had a 6am dash to the vet at Samford Valley, $236 later, she was ok and just needs to be watched over the next 3days. ( She is quite happy and ok now.)

We had planned on having a few hours to clean up and get ready for the party. We rushed around, cleaning up, setting up and getting ourselves ready. 

When everyone arrived, I thanked everyone and explained how the party was going to work and what our intentions were with the promotional shoot and party. 

We started off with a quick 10 minute meditation, our four ladies had not experienced a guided meditation before. I asked about what they experienced during the meditation, how they felt, what they saw, because the experience is quite private I won't disclose what our participants said, but over all, their responses were quite positive and eye opening. 

We also went through the basics of house clearings, why people get them done, what are the effects of the negative thinking and energy that can influence us. There was a quick play with Karmina Gordon's sprays and the amazing effects they have your mood and thinking. 

Our singing bowl was a big hit with our ladies as well. The vibrations helped clear their aura and realign their chakras. Everyone was able to try the singing bowl and boy they she sing. Our little bowl did her magic and had gotten everyone to fall in love with her vibrations. There were also card readings and learning how to interpret what each card means.   

I really enjoyed myself. Sharing a new experience with everyone. Showing people how the small mental notes that have held us back can slowly be removed. 

We hope our next party will be just as successful. 

Thank the gods and the ladies! 

Hard work?!

It can sometime seem as if the harder you work, the harder you fall. The more you put into your work, the more you cherish it, the more protective of it you become. This little business of ours is something that I feel passionate about and it seems, just sometimes, that some people don't understand why we do what we do and that the services we provide is there to help clients and also to provide us with an income. 

Rick and I enjoy giving away free readings to our likers/fans/clients, sometimes it feels like burden for us to give our friends and family free readings and treatments. I know, total oxymoron, right?! We enjoy the readings for people who we have no connection with, clients who are strangers to us. We can connect to their spirit guides, angels, loved ones on an annonymous level, so there is no tainted, "I think" mentality where judgement is placed in front of what we can see. Reading for our clients feels like a new adventure, exploring a world that is unseen by us and can be explored without doing harm and help them with their queries. 

When it comes to our friends and family, or people we have known or have a personal connection with, it can be a little hard to remove the ego and remove the judgement we have. It is hard to identify which is the message from our heads and the messages from our heart. 

It also goes the same way from our clients point of view, which both Rick and I have experienced for ourselves, having paid for readings from the bad to the amazing readers. 

Our hard work seems to sometimes feel like work. We love doing what we do, if we say no to a free reading, healing, etc, it's not for us not having the gift or wanting to share it with people, it is because we need to make sure we have the right intention going into a reading or healing, if something doesn't feel right, if there are lower energies surrounding us, it is may not be the best time for things to be done. 

This isn't meant to be a rant about being asked for readings, or healings, where we can we do as much as we possibly can. 

It's also reflective of how our stats for the facebook page have been going. I felt we were on a roll with getting new likers, getting people to interact on the page, then the weather took us by surprise, I felt a little dejected. But all through it we had people who supported us even though we were only able to go online for 30 minutes or so. 

I guess I need to just be grateful for everything as they are. Things will come to us when it's time for them to come to us.  



 

Plant a seed, see it grow.

I have been through a bit of a tailspin in the past 2  weeks. Just when you think things are starting to turn around something comes along to test you. This time is was the floods, no, I don't think that mother nature is trying to ruin my fun, no at all. But it has shown me a few truths; a) who our real friends are; b) without maintenance things that you beleive slowly start to fade away; and c) nothing is permanent. 

Absence.

It's been a few months  since I have written anything in my blog. Firstly I have to explain our absence. 

At the end of August 2012, a month that saw SF;NI become very productive, I started feeling quite run down and lacking energy. I had several trips to the hospital and I was initially diagnosed with pneumonia. So medications was prescribed to "help" control the symptoms I was experiencing. A few weeks later I was still feeling unwell. 

My breathing was getting worse. I was not sleeping because my breathing would stop. I could barely walk more than a few meters without feeling so out of breath that I could barely stand up. 

I was in hospital for a week. They performed so many tests. The medication prescribed to me for my pneumonia seemed to have caused more harm than good. The final test that was what found my heart problems. I was diagnosed with a enlarge heart, with an ejection fraction of 10-15% which is only 1/5 of what it should be doing. 

Without going into too much detail, I have spent the last few months trying to get back to a healthier sort of norm. My lifestyle has had to change along with my eating habits etc. 


Being in a new year, I've decided that I can now continue to slowly get back into my spiritual work/path. When I was diagnosed with such a shocking ailment, I had given up all that I was practicing, I neglected who I was slowly changing into and just became a victim of circumstance. 

I know now that I need to get back on track and help more people and in turn they will help me understand myself.