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.