G.C. and Blue Knight

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Diana Rankin

I cleaned out my car. It wasn’t any ordinary cleaning.

Golden Chariot, GC for short, I call her, is about to leave me. I say she’s leaving me because she told me it was time to go. She broke down. “It’s the engine,” the mechanic said. He hung his head as if to say there’s really no hope here.

GC had given me a few warnings, but I was quite attacked to her. The mechanic picked up on that and told me what I wanted to her. That she’d be okay for a while. He’d seen lots of Toyota Rav4s make it to 300,000. CG only had 220-plus miles on her. Besides, she looked almost new with the body and interior in great shape.

She’s been my faithful companion since 2009 and for all those 220-plus miles. We’ve traveled freeways to visit friends, to cities and other states to present workshops and for speaking engagements, and ventured over graveled roads that no sane woman of my age should be traveling alone. I always felt safe. GC kept me safe.

But when she started stalling at stop signs and traffic lights and even when I slowed down for curves, I knew she was telling me it was time to let her go. But to where? Who would fix her and care for her the way I had? And where would I find a new car so quickly. Then there’s the money. I should have known a magical miracle was in the making. In fact, a few magical miracles were in the making.

The day the mechanic told me it was time to let go of GC, I walked inside the dealership and told the salesman to find me the right new car. The salesman was a friend I’d known for 20 years, a person I trusted, and someone who knew what I needed in a vehicle. He found one that day. It hadn’t been built yet, but GC was still good as long as I watched the oil. She’d serve me well for the next few weeks.

Still, I was concerned about not seeing this new vehicle before spending a lot of money, money that was being gifted to me, which gave me even more reason to make sure this was the right car for me. As you might have guessed, I’m one who names her cars and keeps them a long time, so I needed a sign to assure me this was the right vehicle. That assurance came while reading about the Rav4s.

An article popper up about the color. It’s called blueprint, a color that changes depending on the light. In the dark it looks black; in the light it looks blue; in bright sunlight it has a purple tone. The name came whizzing into my thoughts: Blue Knight.

Blue Knight, yes. A vehicle to keep me safe. Blue Knight, my protector on these back roads and country byways I travel and over the busy freeways and in clogged city traffic. Blue Knight. I smiled. Thank you. I had my reassurance. But the miracles weren’t over.

The next day, my neighbor was outside, so I stopped to say hi. During our conversation, I mentioned I was getting a new vehicle. “What was my plan for CG?” he asked along with a dozen other questions. Headed over to the post office before going home when his wife called. “I want that Toyota,” she said.

Now here’s the real magical miracle. My neighbor and his son are both mechanically knowledgeable and the grandsons are mechanically inclined. The grandfather and father plan on using GC as a teaching tool in engine repair for the younger generation. “We’ll keep her in the family,” my neighbor said.

As someone who has spent her life in one form of education or another, tears come to my eyes and my heart warmed at this magical miracle. It is as though GC herself planned it.

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Piper’s Story: Hikes, Fall Leaves, and a Noisy Machine

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Diana Rankin

We went for a big hike and met lots of people. It was fun. I get lots of attention from people. That’s because I’m so pretty. Everybody says so.

We don’t always go away from home for hikes. We play in the meadow or sometimes we walk along what Mom Diana calls country roads. Usually, it’s quiet but sometimes it gets really scary. That’s when these great big trucks go by. They’re really, really noisy. That scares me. It helps when Mom holds me and tells me it’s okay. She also says they’re full of corn. That’s food. I like food. Food’s not scary.

When we get home from our walks, she often tosses the ball for me to run and catch. I like that. Sometimes, I get tired, so I carry the ball around in my mouth and walk with Mom until I’m ready for her to throw the ball again.

I’m having lots of fun playing in the leaves. Mom has this long tube with a circle at the end. It makes lots of noise. I tell it who’s boss. I am.

When we’re playing in the leaves, Mom must get cold because she puts on earmuffs. She said it had to do with my talking so much to the leaves and noisy machine. But I know better. It’s not my barking. It’s her ears. They get cold.

Lily Cat and I are getting more used to each other. I see her watching me. She told me I took over her place on the sofa where we sit to watch TV. Mainly I sleep. Mom says she has two hands to pet both of us at the same time. I like it better when she pets me with both hands, but it’s okay if she pets Lily and me at the same time. I know she’ll pet me all by myself soon.

We’re in Mom’s office now. When I’m extra good I get a treat. Mom tells me I’m almost always a good girl, but I can’t have too many treats. I think she’s wrong, about the too many treats, not about my always being a good girl. I’m always a good girl. I like treats.

Have to go now. Mom is about ready to move, and I have to follow her everywhere. That’s the rule. My rule, not hers, but she’s okay with it.

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The Doorway

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Diana Rankin

I walked through a doorway last night in the dreamtime. It took me a long time getting there, and when I finally arrived, I stood at the threshold a while not quite ready to walk through. We are like that, we humans. We ask to be shown our path, and when we are, we pull back – the journey too steep, the door too far away, the other side too frightening – we hesitate to go forward.

My dog, Daisy, and I didn’t get our walk in until later in the day. It had warmed up quite a bit by then. We turned right out of the lane and began walking south. For some reason I turned into the path that leads past the old shack and through the cornfields. I was a little uneasy because of hearing the coyotes so close early this morning and seeing a coyote run out of the corn field last week. I called Daisy over, holding her closer to me than usual. I used to walk this path all the time, but it’s been a while and its familiarity lost. What I had once kept open with a mower was now weed covered and full of fallen branches. I hardly recognized the opening into the woods on the other side of the field. Only by memory of its placement was I able to find it.

As I moved out of the cut cornstalk-lined path and into the woods, I knew this was a journey of trust. And I knew it had to do with the doorway I walked through last night, early this morning actually before Coyote came to welcome me and howl my praise while also reminding me to not take myself too seriously.

Daisy and I wound our way through the woods. When we could no longer find the wider path, we followed the deer’s trail and when we could no longer find that, we cut our own path; me climbing over fallen trees, Daisy jumping over them. No respectable coyote, or deer for that matter, would have been seen near us so noisy we were breaking twigs under our feet as we stomped thought the growth as tall as Daisy and as thick as a dog’s winter undercoat.

We eventually came out behind the house. Daisy seemed surprised to see the meadow so close by. She too seemed to understand that we had been on a journey, and adventure of discovery where only trust provides us safety. When I smiled at her and said okay, she bounded away into the meadow where she danced and barked and ran around in celebration of returning home.

It’s like that with humans too. When we return home after wandering afar, we are joyful. We may not dance and bark the way Daisy did. Our celebration may be quieter, but we know something has altered us, our intuition tells us so. We may not even be aware of what has changed, only that something within us is different; we have somehow deepened. It is right and as it should be, and all we need do is to be grateful and listen for that small inner voice that will whisper a tad stronger now.

Originally published on my old blog site Awakening 2/25/2017

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5 Steps to Contact Your Spirit Guide

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Diana Rankin

One of the most often asked questions people come to me with is how can you contact your spirit guide. I’m big on having a guide to help you through what may often seem like a quagmire of information, to guide you in the right direction, and to help interpret those clues we as humans so often miss.

As those of you know who have studied with me or have attended one of my speaking engagements where I give audience members messages from Spirit, you know that I work with a spirit guide named Phillip. You might also be familiar with Phillip if you use my oracle book, The Master’s Book of Answers by Phillip.

We met many years ago when I had a mystical experience during a meditation. I asked his name. He told me it was the second name down under “Ps” in my name book. That’s when I learned he had a sense of humor and was going to make me work at what I wanted. All these years later, his humor is still intact and he still asks my best from me, not that I always deliver it, but I do my best to do my best.

So how do you meet your Phillip? The following steps should help you do just that:

1. Ask to meet the spirit guide who is your communicator (see step 2 for how to call him in). We all have multiple guides, angels, teachers, healers, and loved ones in spirit world who are willing and wanting to help us. Think about what it’s like if you’re in a room full of people, all of whom want to help you. You receive multiple messages, not all of them the same. What do you do? To whom do you listen? I suggest you listen to the one I call the communicator or your main spirit guide.

The communicator is someone who pulls it all together, and using discernment as to what you do need to know, communicates the message to you. Chances are that you’ve spent time in other life experiences together, so this guide knows how to speak in a language you can understand. Often the communicator has been one of your teachers.

Usually, but not always, the communicator is a male energy. This is because the male energy is the more outgoing of the male-female energetic dynamic.

If you are more comfortable at this point working with a loved one in spirit world, by all means do so. Ask to work with that person’s highest self so the messages you receive are coming from divine source.

2. To call in your communicator spirit guide, get a blank book and a writing utensil. This will become your journal, one of the best ways of communicating with your guide. Do not allow yourself to be concerned with using proper grammar or spelling, etc. The purpose of journaling is twofold: Writing can allow you to move into a meditative state where the words seem to appear on the page by themselves, which happens when you move past the monkey mind and into a deeper state of consciousness; and you will have a written record of your conversations with your guide that you should go back and reread. You will be surprised at your insight and the wisdom you have recorded.

Before going to sleep, put your journal, with writing utensil, at your bedside. Give yourself the pre-sleep suggestion that you are going to meet your spirit guide who is the communicator tonight. Around 4:00 a.m., you’ll wake.

One participant in my workshop Awakening To Your Deeper Intuition, swore she wouldn’t wake at 4:00 a.m. She had been too excited to sleep after our Friday night session, and didn’t go to sleep until after 2:00 a.m. Still around 4:00, she woke. “Suddenly I was wide awake,” she said. “I thought it was morning and started to get out of bed when I looked at the clock. It was 4:02!”

When you wake, start writing. Just write. It doesn’t matter what you write.  Just keep putting words down on paper. Write about what you’re grateful for. Write about how tired you are. Write about why you want to develop your intuition. Write about anything. After about four or five pages, you’ll start to leave the monkey mind and move into a more meditative state. It is in this state that you’ll be able to start communicating with your spirit guide.

Here you can ask questions such as, “Are you my communicator spirit guide? By what name may I call you? How will I know when you are wishing to give me messages?”

Once you and your guide have spent time together, you’ll be able to access him anytime, anywhere, and immediately.

3. Set up tests. For example, if you want to make sure you have received the correct name for your guide, you might say that you’ll meet someone with that name or a similar one within the next 24-hours. That’s what one workshop participant – Donna – did.

Donna participated in the workshop when I held it in the on my land. During her 4:00 a.m. session, her guide told her that his name was Henri, but she would know him as Henry. She questioned how to trust this information, so I suggested she set up a test. She decided that she would meet someone named Henry before she arrived at her home at the end of the workshop on Sunday night.

Three times that weekend I suggested to her that she stop for gas on her way home. Each time she told me that she didn’t need gas, but finally heard me. “I’m not going to stop anywhere around here, because you might know one of the local attendants is named Henry,” she declared.

Sunday evening she drove the 90 minutes to her home, stopping at the gas station near where she lived. She was putting gas into her vehicle when someone pulled up behind her. When the man got out of his vehicle, Donna started laughing. “You’re Henry, aren’t you?” she asked with astonished laughter.

“I am. How did you know?” the man asked.

4. Build a relationship. Like any friendship, it takes time to learn how you and your guide best work together. And it takes nurturing this relationship. Daily, spend time in journaling with your spirit guide. Talk to him. If you are touched by a beautiful sunset, invite him to see it through your eyes, for example.

Follow the guidance you are given, even if it seems nonsensical. For example, you may feel an urge to get off the freeway and stop for a bite to eat, even though you aren’t really hungry. Still, you listen. As you are eating, you hear the sirens and learn there was an accident that occurred minutes after you got off the freeway.

Your guide will NEVER—NEVER—tell you to do anything that is not in your best interest or that of all others. If you think you are being told to do something that is not coming from LOVE, STOP! A spirit guide is here to help make your life better and the life of all beings better. Anything that tells you to hurt yourself or anyone else is a danger to you and to others. You must stop immediately and get help from a qualified professional. This is NOT coming from your spirit guide.

5. Be patient and keep working with your guide. Chances are you’ll soon learn that you’ve been working with this guide your entire life, but now you do so in a conscious way. It will get easier as you become more familiar with this new language. Soon you’ll be saying how grateful you are that you took the time and effort to get to know this great inner resource.

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Musings of a Motorcycle Mystic 

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Although I no longer ride, I share this with you because it still holds the truth of why I am a psychic and the universal truth for all of us on the journey of discovering our intuition: ”The road always winds back, taking us where we need to go at the moment we need to be there. All we need do is take the journey.” Thank you for taking the journey, and thank you for taking it with me.  

I didn’t set out to be a psychic, but then I never thought at age 60 I’d start to ride my own motorcycle. Both have taken me down winding, unknown, labyrinthian roads—roads that perhaps should require a sign that states: “Beware, only the brave should enter here.”

Courage is required for the taking the road less traveled. The journey is fraught with perils that, had we known before we began, we might not have taken. I am not one to stay safely behind. I am a wayfarer, a traveler of the mind’s depths and the earth’s terrain, and for those like me who chose the journey, the rewards are greater than imagined. A passage in my book 23 Days A Celtic Journey reads in reference to a hike up Mt. Snowdon in Wales: Although the climb is not easy still,/I’ll see the majesty of this land,/Beauty I could not have seen/Lest this climb I did make.”

It is only in the taking of the road less traveled that we find the truth of ourselves and the beauty of the life of which we are a part.

In my younger years when I made the decision to live my life as a prayer, I hadn’t quite envisioned how that would play out in my everyday life. I certainly never imagined that riding a motorcycle would become my prayer, yet for my first season of riding, every time I got onto that bike I chanted God and my angels are keeping me safe and calm today, God and my angels are keeping me safe and calm today. The chanting has gone by the wayside, but living my life as a prayer hasn’t. Every thought, deed, word spoken or action can be committed in prayer, in love. Certainly riding is.

Motorcycle riding is a dangerous sport. There’s no doubt about it. Riding requires every ounce of my concentration. My life depends on my attentiveness and intuition. Being in the moment is not an option. It is a necessity. Being open to Phillip, my spirit guide, and using my intuition is life saving. Aside from the mechanical operation of a bike, you also must be aware of your surroundings—deer, dogs, merging vehicles, drivers on cell phones, traffic lights, wind draft from trucks—a thousand signals coming at you every moment must be taken in, assimilated, processed and acted upon. I trust my intuition, listening attentively, knowing whether that driver is going to cross the yellow line, forcing me to the edge of the lane; knowing whether that driver is going to pull out in front of me, forcing me to brake hard; whether that driver is going to pass on a two-lane highway into my lane; whether the light is going to change; and which of all those tempting winding, twisting, unknown labyrinthine roads I should take to find the gifts awaiting me.

I took the road to be a psychic reader, accepted the calling, received the training, and dedicated my life to the service of others. The road taken has indeed not been what I expected of my life, and although different, it has by no means been less, but instead richly rewarding. Every time I witness the heart of another open to healing because of words that come through me, I know I have taken the right road for me, the one my soul chose at a level deeper than I, in my human self, would have ever dreamed—or dared—to chose.

It is this deeper self that pulls me to Kali, my motorcycle, as often as possible: Kali, the Mother Goddess, symbol of dissolution and destruction, she who destroys ignorance and frees those who strive for union with God by igniting us with the gift of pure consciousness. I feel her power every time I turn left or right at the end of the lane. It matters less which way I turn than that I make the turn.

Perhaps it is the roads not taken we wonder the most about, the ones we passed for the quicker, seemingly easier route. It does our hearts no good to spend time wondering of those roads. There is another road waiting for us. It is up to us to take it and leave behind the safety of the familiar to traverse the ever-changing landscape of the unfamiliar and roads that meander through the highways and byways of life.

Kicking the bike into high gear, I crest a ridge, and I can see forever. I open to amazement and wonder of the vista presented to me. A doe and her two fawn graze in the meadow near the edge of the woods; shadows of tall white pine fall over golden fields of summer wheat; a green-roofed red barn stands beside an old wooden farm house in a stand of oak and ash trees; and the sky is brilliant with the pinks and yellows of today’s sun’s last hurrah. Something shifts within me and the air itself shimmers with anticipation of life’s promise. No longer am I separate from the bike, the road, or life itself. We are Oneness, and the gratitude I feel is astounding. I am the symphony of the heartbeat of life and the pulsating vibration of the pipes that quiver as I back off the engine. I am the rider; I am the bike; I am the deer on the other side of the field and I am the field. I am all that ever was and all that is and all the will be. I am life in all her glory and all her disparagement. I am the psychic reader, I am the teacher, who stands on the vista of the your life to look beyond that which you can only glimpse in this moment in time, and I hold your heart while together we move away the mountains that you may open to the panorama of your own life and begin to see anew.

Perhaps we shall pass on the road, your journey different from mine, each right for us individually, converging into one another’s lives at junctures like riders who wave as we pass one another, one rider going one way, another going the other way, yet sharing for a brief moment in time, a love of the open road and a roaring engine beneath us.

The road less traveled may seem to take us away from the dreams we once had for our lives, when circumstances divert us from the paved highways onto graveled paths. Perhaps it is only after traveling the graveled lane for awhile that we can come to understand the road we chose brought us to a higher calling.

Eventually I’ll return home. We all do. Whether we are coming back from the energy of the reading or the bike ride down country roads, we’ll come again to that road that winds back on ourselves. The road always winds back, taking us where we need to go at the moment we need to be there. All we need do is take the journey.  

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Should You Fear Your Intuition?

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Intuition is as common as is breathing and should not be feared. That said, however, if we go into the deeper psychic energy, we must take measures to protect ourselves. What’s the difference between the intuition we use every day and psychic energy?

Intuition is innate within each of us. It’s that hunch or gut instinct that leads us in the right direction. As we develop and refine intuition, we deepen in awareness of our own insight into life; we become more aware of the answers that come to us as we learn to read the clues. As we deepen intuition we start to move into the psychic energy. It is here that we may encounter negative as well as positive information. We are simply becoming more sensitive to other people’s energy, the collective energy, and energy emitting from Earth and the universe.

Poets and artists as well as psychics and other sensitive souls have this awareness of the energies, which allows us to tap into a greater consciousness. Some psychics are also mediums, which allows us to communicate with people and animals who have passed into what some call death, and what I call the spirit world.

It is when delving into the deeper consciousness and/or the spirit world that we do need to protect ourselves. Not everyone lives with grace and love in this life, and we don’t immediately become all loving the minute we leave this body and move into spirit world. Although love will always trump fear, there is evil energy that you don’t want – or need – to encounter. How do you avoid it?

We protect ourselves by simply evoking love in the form that is most comfortable for each of us. For example, this is the prayer that I was taught by one of my teachers, Angel Gail Konz, whom I met when I attended Jean Houston’s East Coast Mystery School. It’s a simple, yet powerful prayer that I teach participants in my workshop, Awakening to Your Deeper Intuition: “I know I am protected by the Divine Light of the Christ.”

Say the prayer with conviction and see this Divine Light encompassing you, infusing you with Divine Love. If this prayer is not the right one for you, that’s okay. Follow your own heart to find the prayer that is right for you.

Remember, we are the one in charge. It is up to us to be in a place of love rather than fear.

Fear can awaken intuition, but we don’t want to stay in the fear. Let’s say you’re in a parking garage when suddenly you feel fearful. What do you do? Take a breath and say the prayer of protection, which helps you move into a place of love where you are better able to read your intuition and know what steps to take to keep you safe.

What about non-human entities in the ethers? Should you be afraid of them? No. Entities are forms of fear energy that feed on fear. If you are plagued by fear, you need to work on your life to expunge fear from your thoughts, exchanging fearful thoughts for ones of love. There is nothing that can enter your energy unless you allow it to. Remember, you are in charge of your life. If at any time, you feel fearful, say a prayer of protection, and say it with intent and feeling. Say it over and over until love overtakes any fear you may be experiencing.

I love the simplicity of that which A Course In Miracles teaches us about fear. It says that all emotion comes from either fear or love. The unfolding of the understanding of that thought is complex, but when I’m caught in fear, I can remind myself of the simple thought that there is only fear or love, and I can move into a place of love.

As we develop intuition, we actually feel safer in life. More and more we’ll want to move away from the drama caused by fear and live in the love that is truly life. We’ll come more and more to rely on intuition to guide us, keeping us always safe and in life’s grace.

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A Game to Practice Intuition: Use Four Cards

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Here’s an easy way to test and practice your intuition.

Shuffle a deck of cards. Pull out four cards, but do not look at them. Lay them side-by-side upside down. Take a relaxing breath and ask to tune into your intuition. Ask to be shown the highest card.

Hold your hand over each card for a few moments.

The highest card may cause a tingling sensation or a warm feeling in your hand, or you may have a sense this is the card. You may not have any physical reaction, but just have a slight hunch that this is the highest card. Trust yourself.

Turn the cards over. Were you right? Try again. How many times did you get it right?

You may not succeed at first but keep working at it. You’ll find yourself jumping for joy once you start guessing the right cards.

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Be Here Now

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Flashes of intuition often come when we least expect them, but to receive them we must be present for ourselves. As Ram Dass said back in the 1970s, “Be here now.” But what does that mean?

We wear a lot of different hats in our lives—living mini lives within our bigger life; lives that make up the fullness of who we are—mother or father, wife or husband, daughter or son, employee or employer, housekeeper and gardener, caretaker of children/pets/parents. We need our appointment books and electronic calendars to remind us of where we need to be when, what task we need to be attending to at any given time. It seems to me with so much going on the only way we can exist with any amount of sanity is to stay in the present moment—to be here NOW.

“Be here now,” the phrase coined to represent being fully present and engaged in your life by Ram Dass back in 1971 in his book with the same title— Be Here Now. It was a good book then. It’s still a good book. I’m on my second copy, the first, with its tattered edges and worn pages, long since gone to someone else’s bookshelf. I no longer remember to whom I gave the book, but I always remembered the book, so a dozen years or so ago I picked up another copy. It doesn’t have as much character. It’s edges aren’t tattered nor are the pages worn. I haven’t needed the book to remind me to stay in the now the way I did when I was younger. As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown and become more adapt at reminding myself to stay present. But I remember, oh how I remember, that first copy of Ram Dass’ book and the revelation it was to me.

I was a part-time hippie then. I lived in California. And I was a seeker. By day I put on my corporate suit and wrote copy for a small publishing firm. We specialized in books on marketing and how to make money. Napolean Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich had a big influence on us. He wasn’t one of our authors. Mainly we published the owner’s books and his theories on how to market products to the masses. It was a fun job with an office full of friends. The owner, who taught part time at a couple California universities, including UCLA. He even had me fill in for him on occasion because I had taught school for a couple years in Ohio before I became a part-time hippie and headed off to California. The owner didn’t know I was a hippie. Had he known, he never would have let me stand in front of his students—half of who were older than me and the other half who looked older—and impart to them the information I had memorized from reading his books.

I got fully into teaching, the same way I got into the writing. Both activities required of me to be completely present in the now, but at the time I didn’t realize this being fully present in the moment was what Ram Dass was talking about. I was still trying to figure all that out, so it was the weekends I lived for—the long days when we jumped on the motorcycles and flew along the California freeways, stopping at friends or the homes of people we met on the road. Or the days we hiked up mountains in the summer and skied in the winter. Or days we just headed along winding roads beside the ocean, and I watched the waves I would someday sail in Diana Too, my 32-foot wooden ketch.

We didn’t need much sleep. We were young. We’d spend the night passing joints while words poured forth and our minds—if somewhat stoned—were filled with new expressions and concepts we were certain no one else had ever thought of.  I’m sure some of our ideas were slightly delusional in our marijuana-filled psyche, but some of our thoughts were . . . well . . . deep and full of exploration of human potential. That’s where Ram Dass and Be Here Now come in.

It was a new concept, and we latched on. We dug in, lit another joint, and analyzed every word. How can you plan for a future and be here now? What about yesterday’s memories? If I’m sitting here now and only thinking about my big toe, does that mean I’m here now? Am I here now if I’m thinking? Is being here now beyond thinking? Is it just experiencing?  “Hey man, let it go, let it all go. That’s being here now.”

It’s only now so many years later that I realize how much time we did spend in the now, in the present moment. In the moments of our analyzing and arguing, we were alive in the moment. In our gliding down the freeway on two wheels or four wheels or hiking up or skiing down a mountain or watching about the ocean’s waves, we were living in the now. In the time we spent touching the minds and hearts and bodies of each other, we were fully present in the now. In the time I spent writing and teaching, I was fully engaged in each moment. It was only when we stopped living and tried to be in the now that we failed. It was only when we stopped engaging the fullness of who we were in that moment of time that we stopped being in the now.

I didn’t realize that then, didn’t realize that being in the now is being fully engaged with your life in the moment, regardless of what that moment brings. We spend much of our lives in the now. Life forces us to. It forces us when we are blowing kisses on a child’s tears, when we are answering the questions of a student, when a car is coming at us on the wrong side of the road, when we twist an ankle on steps and need to right ourselves, when we are awed by a sunset, when. . .  when . . . in a thousand ways life forces us to be present in the moment, to be here now. And when life is not forcing us to be in the now, it allows us to be in the now if we accept the gift of the present moment—each and every beautiful/painful/blissful/grief-filled/precious moment.

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Ever Feel You’re Not Heard?

Posted on October 8, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Do you ever feel frustrated or hurt because you feel the other person didn’t hear you? If so, you’re not alone.

Studies show that we listen at only about 25 percent efficiency. This means we don’t hear—or understand—what the other person is saying about 75 percent of the time. And we wonder why we have such bad communication.

Learning to listen to the other person begins with a desire to actually hear what they are saying instead of hearing what we want them to be saying. Too often our own agenda gets in the way; we block out what the other is saying and hear only those words that supports our beliefs. So how can we change this?

Here are 10 tips to help you become a better listener. These tips are for normal conversations, not for any threatening situations.

  1. Admit you may not be the best listener. Very few of us are great listeners. Even as a trained listener who pays attention to what my clients are saying, I may find my mind wandering when interacting with a group of friends or family. I have to remind myself to put my listening abilities back on full attention.
  2. Set aside your own agenda and pay attention to what the other is saying. You may not agree; that’s okay. But listen with respect before stating your opinion. We’re so busy shouting at one another or thinking about pushing our agenda that we don’t hear what the other is saying.
  3. Absorb the information the other is providing, then provide feedback such as a nod of the head or repeating the essence back to verify you understood what the other is saying.
  4. Eye contact and body language are important factors to how well we are listening. Look at the person speaking. Show respect to the other person with an open heart and mind. Avoid crossing your arms over your heart. Slightly lean toward the speaker. Be aware of what your eyes and your body language are conveying.
  5. If you need to take a moment to reflect on what the other is saying, say so. Make sure you’re reflecting is to help you understand, and not thinking about how to come back. Hear the other person before you block your listening by filling your mind with thoughts of your agenda.
  6. If you don’t understand a point, ask questions for clarity.
  7. Yes, some people go on and on, so your listening may wane. That’s when you interrupt. When, and if, it’s appropriate, say excuse me and ask for clarity.
  8. Unless you’re a professional and being paid to give advice, or your advice is asked for, don’t. In conversations, we often just want to talk with others and may air our feelings about something but are not looking for advice or a way to fix us.
  9. Understand what the other person is trying to convey. They may not use the words you would use; they may not speak the same language or have the same education; they may be from a different culture, age, or be a different gender. They may be a visual person and you’re a word person. Reach into your heart and do your best to find understanding of what they are saying.
  10. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Do your best to understand what the speaker is trying to convey. This is not easy. It’s hard to understand how an experience has shaped someone, especially if we’ve never had the same experience. Empathy and compassion go a long way in helping us listen.

Listening is about letting the other person know you are hearing and care enough about them as a human being to listen to what they are saying. We can all be good listeners. It’s just a matter of caring enough about the other to put aside our agendas and listen with an open heart and an open mind.

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Seven Ways to Awaken Your Intuition and Activate Your Psychic Powers

Posted on October 5, 2022 by Diana Rankin

Developing your intuition is a healthy way to take charge of your life and use your own inner psychic powers to guide your life to greater happiness and fulfillment. Following are seven ways to awaken your intuition and activate your psychic powers. Each is designed to help you get past the brain patterns you’ve created with your normal thinking. These methods mix up your thinking process to help you reach deeper levels of your intuition and find your psychic powers.

1. Open to Spirit and develop an awareness of your own inner world through meditation, prayer, and a loving desire to live a life of service to all living beings and the planet. You’ll be amazed at the richness and joy you’ll experience as you tap into your inner world. Children are especially adept at exploring their inner worlds, so take your child – or your inner child – on an exploration of the wonders of meditation and deep prayer.

Begin with the intent that you wish to explore the place of love within you. Use a guided meditation CD, music, or meditative breathing. As relaxation spreads throughout your body, allow yourself to experience the love that you are, the truth of who you are. Begin deep prayer work by thanking Spirit for your life and that which is in your life, then relax and ask that it be revealed to you the ways you can be of service to life and live a greater, more expanded, and exalted life.

2. Build up the pathways between the left and right brain hemispheres with easy-to-do crossover exercises. Cross the right hand over the front of your body and tap the left foot seven or eight times. Then, cross the left hand over the front of your body and tap the right foot seven or eight times. Repeat the exercises, but this time cross your hand over the back of your body.

Practice doing things with your non-dominate hand, such as opening doors, brushing your hair or teeth, or even writing. In addition to opening more pathways in your brain for intuition, you’re also creating more brain power for problem solving and critical thinking skills.

3. Heighten the awareness of each of your five senses. Intuition may be called the sixth sense, but if our five senses are dull, we can’t expect the sixth sense to be sharp. Our lives offer an endless playground for our five senses. Mix up your five senses. Begin by holding an object, any object, such as a stone or piece of cloth. Become intimate with that object. Look at it until you can see it with your eyes closed. Then ask yourself what the object tastes like.

Use your imagination. You don’t actually have to put the object into your mouth and taste it. Once you’ve gone through all five senses, mix it up again and ask yourself questions such as: What color is the taste? or What does the object’s sound feel like? Then go to the next level and ask yourself questions such as: If this object could speak, what wisdom about my life would it tell me?

4. Become aware of the whispers from Spirit by becoming more aware of life in each moment. Be open to receiving information and guidance to help make your life better. Nature is a wonderful teacher for intuition. Pay attention to the animals that cross your path and the winged ones who grab your attention. If you live in the center of the Midwest and a flock of seagulls dip and dive all around you, listen. Are they asking you to let go of your worries and soar with them?

Nature is alive with stone people, cloud people, tree people, and a myriad of others who speak to us all the time. We only need to listen.

5. Journal and dialogue with that which is greater than you: God, Goddess, a spirit guide, an angel, the highest self of someone you love and trust who has passed over. Choose a regular time to meet. Following morning meditation is ideal. Use your favorite blank journal, and just start writing, or if you’re a visual learner, draw. It doesn’t matter what you write, just write, or draw, and keep on going for about three pages. It usually takes about three pages to get past the objections in your mind that keeps you from accessing your deeper nature.

You’ll feel the shift, and once you do, write a question, then write the answer. Don’t judge the answer as you write, just write down the words that come to you. This is a subtle process.

Don’t expect shouts. Trust what comes. Later, go back and read what you wrote. You’ll be amazed at the wisdom that comes through your inner world.

6. Play intuitive games with yourself and others. Before getting into line at the bank or market, ask yourself which line is the quickest. Gather a group of photographs of different people that are all the same size, turn them upside down, and then guess whose picture is on the other side of each photograph. Use your intuition to stay safe. I live in deer country. Every time I feel the deer near, I slow down. Sure enough, deer will be around the next corner or over the next hill.

7. Let go of control and surrender to that part of yourself that is connected to Spirit. None of us are in control of life, but we are in charge of our lives. We can choose to experience life to its fullest. Or not. We can choose to be grateful for what we have. Or not. We can choose to live a life of service to our own lives and to all humanity. Or not.

Trying to hold control is like trying to stop a river from flowing. Taking charge of your life is becoming the master of your own destiny, flowing with the river and laughing all the way, and allowing your intuition to guide you to a greater, more fulfilling life.

These steps to awaken to your deeper intuition and activate your psychic powers take time and practice. Be patient and loving with yourself. Tapping into your intuition comes in its own time but comes only after you take the steps toward your own greater self.

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