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  Grammy Brown simply taught me to accept that these parts of life were there, but she never named them. Later, through Druidry, I learned the names of things, and I learned the rules of engagement.

  4

  The Witch in the Kitchen

  Time is not pragmatic and does not work the same way in every situation. There are instances when five minutes can seem like an eternity or five days can go by in a blink of the eye. As a psychic I have found time to be an especially wobbly thing that can be bent, stretched, condensed, and revisited, depending on the present need.

  When an event holds information I should retain, time automatically slows down. I become hyperaware, capturing every detail of my external surroundings and analyzing even the most trivial thoughts as they flash through my mind. I also become acutely aware of conversations that happen around me, no matter how inconsequential they seem. I remember these events with tremendous clarity because my mind has created shortcuts through time and space.

  The first such time-slowing incident happened when I was four years old. It was October and I was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep. I knew it was still early, as the remains of daylight were visible through my window. The bedroom door was open, and I could see most of the trailer from the vantage of my top bunk. Nosy by nature, I spent most evenings trying to stay awake long enough to find out what my parents did while I was sleeping. Most of the time this wasn’t that exciting, and after a few moments of watching, I fell asleep. But something was different this night. I could feel it.

  There was a pressure in my room that made the hairs on my arms stand up and made me conscious of the sound of my own breathing. The house felt too quiet. I remember thinking that someone had turned the volume on the television down very low. This felt weird to me, so I pulled the blankets up over my head, leaving only enough room for my eyes to peek out. As I peered across the living room into the narrow kitchen, I was surprised to see a woman standing next to the stove. She had not been there a moment ago. I had not heard anyone come to the door, and no one was at my house except my parents, Sandy, and me. What’s more, my parents didn’t seem to notice her, even though the couch they sat on faced the kitchen. They acted as if they couldn’t see her, which I found strange, because I was unable not to look at her.

  Lying there, breathing unevenly, I could tell she was looking back at me. This made me uncomfortable and created the familiar feeling of pressure between my eyes in the middle of my forehead. I would later interpret this pressure as the opening of my third eye, the chakra connected to psychic knowing. I thought the visitor was magical in some way. She cut an imposing figure, dressed head to toe in black, which made the paleness of her skin stand out in contrast. Her hair, like her clothing, was black, and her light eyes were piercing in their intensity. I thought she was both beautiful and intimidating. There was something hauntingly familiar about her, and I believed we were deeply connected. Whenever she stared at me, I could almost get it, almost figure out who she was; and then I would find my mind wandering, thinking about myself again. My mother would occasionally step into the kitchen to tidy things up, and she would walk around the woman as if she wasn’t there at all. The woman would keep looking at me and would even move around my mother if she had to in order to keep me in her sight. Her visits seemed to span an eternity, but they probably only lasted fifteen or twenty minutes.

  I thought perhaps the woman and I were related, because she looked a bit like my mother; but my mother was soft and fair, and the woman in the kitchen was strong and bold. I was used to seeing spirits, so I wondered if she might be a ghost, but there was something different about her. She was more tangible, and her energy filled the space around her like a palpable force. Colors danced about her in bright patterns. I recognized the colors and lights as her energy field, and later I learned that this field was called an aura.

  I have seen auras for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t know what they were called until I was nearly an adult. My family was old school, and my metaphysical education was delivered not by books but by Grammy Brown, who was an old hillbilly. I knew that the lights and colors that surrounded people, animals, and plants was the energy of their souls that couldn’t fit into their bodies. I knew this energy only surrounded things that were alive, and that dead things and inanimate objects didn’t possess it. Spirits may also have energy images around them, but theirs aren’t as vibrant.

  This understanding—that the aura surrounding the woman marked her as a living being—stirred many questions for me. Night after night, as the woman in black returned and stood in the kitchen, I lay in bed and stared across the house into her eyes and wondered, Where does she come from? What does she want from me? Why don’t Mommy and Daddy seem to notice her?

  I eventually concluded that she was a person with heightened awareness and psychic gifts. I knew there were other people in parallel dimensions who were like Grammy, Sandy, and me—people who could “see.” I had encountered some of these people while gazing into the mirror. I also knew that a person’s spirit could step out of their body when they were sleeping or in a deep state of relaxation. So I stopped focusing on where the stranger came from and who she was, and I started thinking about what she wanted from me.

  These visitations went on nightly for about two weeks with her simply standing there, staring at me across the trailer. I could feel her gaze in my mind. The pressure in my third eye grew as we watched each other. I was no longer alarmed by her, and I was positive she wanted me to see her. I often felt as if she was challenging me in some way, trying to get me to remember something. Her, perhaps?

  My next conclusion was that she was a witch, a thought that had been tumbling about my mind since I first saw her. The thought didn’t scare me because I was fascinated by witches. I wondered why she would be watching me, though, and what I’d done to grab her attention.

  I started to look forward to her coming because of how her visits affected me. The world around me became quiet, and I found myself focused on the space she stood in. In this altered state, time appeared to slow down, and my senses became heightened. I found colors to be more vibrant, sounds to be clearer, and my attention to detail was enhanced. I loved the experience because it reminded me of dreaming.

  I began to feel she was speaking to me in my mind, saying “remember” over and over again. The closer we got to Halloween, the more I was convinced that the witch was telling me to remember something, but I couldn’t figure out what.

  The days ticked away, and soon the big night arrived—time to get dressed up and go begging for candy. At the age of four, I had little say in what Halloween costume I would wear; it remained a surprise to me until the time came to put it on. I was shocked as my mother pulled out a black witch’s dress and hat out of a box. The costume came with makeup, and soon she was painting my face green and placing a fake wart on my nose. I remember thinking that the green makeup and wart weren’t necessary because real witches weren’t green and warty.

  As it happened, the makeup my mother used to paint my face didn’t come off completely at first, leaving me to spend the next few days with green eyebrows. As I looked in the mirror at my reflection, I thought, At last everyone will know I am a witch.

  In that moment, staring at myself in the mirror, I found myself thinking of the witch in the kitchen, and I knew what she was asking me to remember. She was showing me that, like her, I was a witch. Not a storybook villain or a cackling old crone, but a real, true witch. As I sat there gazing at myself, I suddenly saw her looking back at me from the other side of the mirror, and she was smiling.

  5

  Through the Looking Glass

  I believe mirrors are portals, windows that lead to other times, places, and people, both living and dead. Many cultures have attributed magical value to mirrors, believing them to be useful tools in psychic divination, scrying, remote viewing, protection, and glamour.

  Both my parents’ house and Grammy Brown’s had many mirrors, which gav
e me plenty of portals to look through. The one I used most often for viewing was a large mirror in our living room that stretched along the wall above the gold velvet couch. It was the one in which I experienced the most random visitors. I often thought of it as a train station where I could see people passing by. Some of them waved as if they knew me, some tried hard to get me to talk to them, and others looked at me quizzically as if they were trying to figure out what they were seeing. Some seemed not to notice me at all. I spent a lot of time thinking about what they must be thinking when they saw me, especially the ones who seemed shocked. Did they know what they were doing? Were they figuring it out as they went along, like me? Or were they completely clueless? I wondered how they were entering the mirror. Were they staring into one like I was? Were they passing by quickly? Or were they having a dream? I suspect that I saw people in each of those categories, because I experienced their magic in a variety of ways.

  As children, Sandy and I spent hours in front of mirrors—talking to people, viewing events, and connecting to our other selves. We were not engaging in an act of make-believe; we were truly talking to other beings, ourselves included. We didn’t think much about what we were doing or how we were doing it. We were just playing a game that Grammy Brown had taught us. If she saw us staring into a mirror, she asked us what we were looking at. She didn’t tell us what to see; she simply suggested that there could be more looking back at us then ourselves. Sometimes she would ask us questions: “What color shirt are they wearing? Are they old or young? Can you see any buildings? Does anything look familiar?”

  Her questioning worked like a tuning fork on my psychic mind, bringing me into the same frequency as the vision in the mirror. This tuning procedure allowed me to “see” the vision more clearly as it fleshed itself out.

  In psychic terminology, seeing means perceiving through any of the six senses or mental imagery. I am fortunate to be a multisensory medium, which means my psychic abilities allow me to perceive information through sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and knowledge. The magic does not lie in the mirror itself. The mirror is just a tool, and the mind can perform the same feats by itself. I later learned to do these same things without the use of tools, but I give credit to the mirror for helping me develop my gift.

  Sandy and I soon realized that when we looked in the mirror together, we were able to look at the same image and talk to the same people. This deepened our belief that what we were experiencing was absolutely real. We talked about it often and taught each other tricks. I developed a way of “looking” that helped me see more clearly. I softened my gaze and focused on staring into my own eyes in the mirror, often with my face tilted slightly, leading my gaze with my right eye. This hypnotic technique helped me shift my consciousness and my gaze from “not looking” to “looking” instantaneously.

  Grammy also taught me to reflect and refract my image, imagining mirrors inside mirrors inside mirrors. She said you could use this trick when you wanted to disappear from what you saw in the mirror, and you could also use it to send negative energy back at those who meant you harm.

  I used different mirrors for different things, which had more to do with the mirror’s location than the mirror itself. Bathroom mirrors were good for anything, as long as the engagement was short. Bathrooms provided privacy for a quick conversation, but lots of people pass through bathrooms, which means you can’t use them for long, uninterrupted talks. Bathroom mirrors were generally good for viewing and connecting to passerby energy.

  One of my other early childhood observations was that mirrors in public places were good for “reading” people. If I watched someone through a mirror instead of looking at them directly, I could often see their true nature, view events that hadn’t happened to them yet, and see the spirits that surrounded them. I think one reason you can see a person’s true nature and what things swirl around their future when you look at them in a mirror is that you can stare at them longer and more unabashedly and psychically. They won’t notice you looking at them.

  I reserved serious conversations for the bedroom mirror. Privacy seemed important when talking to the people on the other side, so this was something I did alone or with Sandy. When I was worried, sad, or angry, I turned to the people in the mirror for advice and guidance, knowing them to be wise and caring. I’m not sure why, but I always thought it best not to talk to my parents about the people in the mirror.

  I never felt endangered by my experiences. Grammy taught me that fear was not to be tolerated when it came to working with the dead and other disembodied beings. She said fear was an energy filled with mischief, and it could be used negatively if you weren’t careful. She never used fear when teaching me; she simply taught me there was no need to cultivate that form of energy. I had such a natural ease with the mirror and couldn’t imagine anyone who would wish me harm, so I felt quite safe. I may have been afraid of other things as a kid, but I was not afraid of spirits. Grammy instilled that in me deeply. She taught me early on that we have more power here in our own world because we have a body here.

  In many ways mirror communication is like a psychic video call. Communication with someone through the mirror, or without tools at all, requires the energy frequency of a medium. Mediums are like conduits that allow energy to be channeled through them. Beings in spirit form borrow the energy of a medium to make contact. In essence, a medium controls whether a spirit can use their energy or not.

  Over time my visitors became more consistent, and I saw the same people again and again. I started to think of them as my friends. Sandy and I developed such involved relationships with them that once the two of us had an argument with someone on the other side. I don’t remember what it was about, but it was the sort of silly fight you would have with a sibling or someone else you were close to.

  The witch from the kitchen began appearing in mirrors and in my dreams, and she stopped coming to my house in such a solid form. As a developed medium, I now understand that she switched to communication through mirrors and dreams to conserve energy. It takes a lot of energy for a spirit of any kind to manifest fully. Once she had my attention, she opted to use easier methods of communication.

  6

  Lucid Dreaming

  One day my dad was driving my mom and me down the road in our station wagon when he lost control of the vehicle while going around a corner. The car hit loose gravel at high speed and began careening off the steep embankment, plowing through branches and debris. While being tossed around in the back seat, I suddenly found myself viewing the scene from outside the car, as if I were watching it on television. I was only four years old and had no words for my experience, but I did feel a great deal of fear as I saw the vehicle barreling through trees and racing toward the ravine at the bottom of the slope. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would pop out of my body. I didn’t want to die. I did the only thing I could think of: I screamed “Stop!”

  Suddenly the station wagon was hanging motionless in midair. My parents sat frozen in the front seat. I was dualistically present, experiencing the situation simultaneously from the back seat and from outside the car. It was like playing a video game where I was both the character on the screen and the person playing the game. I was no longer frightened, but I was perplexed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I knew things couldn’t stay in this stasis point forever, with my parents frozen and the car hovering high above the ravine. I also knew that I was the only one who could do anything about it.

  I couldn’t just release us, for surely the car would plummet to the ground, hurting or killing us. I decided I had to undo the situation completely and take the vehicle back to the point before my father lost control of it. I began to imagine I was turning back time, rewinding the scene, like moving the hands of a clock in reverse. I felt myself exerting energy as I pushed mentally to change the outcome of the situation. Visually, I experienced this much like watching a video on rewind. I’m not sure where this imagery came from, becau
se this event took place many years before the advent of audio cassettes and movie videos. But the imagery I experienced was so much like a video that I could almost hear the blip-blip-blip of the scene scrolling backward.

  After I rewound to the place where the car was safely on the road, I had to exert a tremendous amount of mental force to keep the situation from happening again. At first I couldn’t do it, and the scene just repeated itself. I rewound the situation again and again, and through trial and error I eventually discovered that I could force my will at the exact moment when things began to go wrong: when the car hit the loose gravel.

  With all of us held at that moment, I felt a deep pressure in my third eye and imagined the car wheels to be sticky, adhering to the road. I knew I was creating a new reality with my mind; I was changing events. After I got us through that crucial moment, things went back to normal, and my parents talked away in the front seat as if nothing unusual had happened.

  With my heart still racing, I awoke to find I had been dreaming. I found this confusing because I’d been “awake,” conscious, able to make decisions and take action the whole time. I realized that I’d just had a completely different kind of experience, one proving that my dreams weren’t just memories playing out or movies in my mind. They were a world unto themselves that could be explored and navigated. This discovery excited me because I’d always struggled with the question of whether my waking world was my true existence.

  The advantage of becoming conscious in my dreams at four years old was that I hadn’t yet formed a rigid view of reality. My mind was open to possibilities and approached most things in a fun-loving way. Over the years I have reconsidered my dreams in terms of quantum theory and a multitude of realities happening simultaneously. Time is not fully linear, which helps explain how psychics can know things that have not yet happened and can revisit the past, not only their own but that of others. In that regard, dreams, deep trances, hypnosis, and shamanic journeying can be gateways that help us access the realms of spirit and other dimensions.