The Truths of Falling off the Perch

Elizabeth sat on the beach on the island of Oahu, Hawaii listening to the soft break of the waves. She clicked through the latest book titles. Nothing appealed…all seemed to leave out the essentials of her life: that the truth of being here was that the majority of people on planet earth were experiencing just one of their lives. There was no death. She felt frustrated about not speaking of truths, ones that she had learned many years before. Her hesitation had been would she be ostracized if her ways of thinking and living were known. Would she immediately receive disapproval and criticism? “Am I a coward for not sharing?” she questioned out loud.

The sea foam blue Pacific Ocean was dotted with dozens of surfers. From her vantage point, the variety of people, the murmurs of their voices with the breaking surf as the background, emphasized the joy in the shedding of clothes. It mirrored the experience of the sense of freedom. She wondered how many centuries would pass before our essential thinking changed to understand we keep on living, sometimes in spirit form, other times in a physical life.

In her mind’s eye, she visualized what she knew as truth. All peoples were walking beside each other, on the same path toward the same goal, each at a different pace.

At that moment Elizabeth decided to start the process of emptying her head onto the written page. She watched a yellow catamaran push off for a sail. The beach was filling up with those waiting to witness that extraordinary process of the sky lighting up with sunset colors.

She thought, “As I sit here on the warm sand, doing nothing but letting beauty in, I’m thinking this is what I need, to write what I know by resting the mind, then letting go with trust onto the page.”

Many years before near this same beach and in a nearby apartment, she heard the words, “Wake up Elizabeth, you have a phone call. It’s your boyfriend and he’s here, they’ve docked.”

Her roommate knew Elizabeth had been waiting for this call — that the Nanaimo and its crew were safe. They had just finished the 1957 Transpacific Yacht Race across the Pacific Ocean from San Pedro, California to Oahu, Hawaii. At that moment, little did she know that phone call that summer in Waikiki would start her on a romantic and painful journey with him, her future husband, the father of her children.

Now, looking back, Elizabeth realized that first trip to Hawaii was the start of her learning journey into metaphysics, that opening up to senses unseen but familiar to her.

The marriage relationship deteriorated — dissatisfaction and hurt led Elizabeth to find the answers, to live a larger truth.

Mark and Charlie were the joys of her life, at five and three they were curious and loving. Later, two more “joys” were born into her life before the marriage ended.

One day, Elizabeth took her two boys to an Oakland barbershop where a woman barber was standing ready to do her work.

“Both children need your scissors. I’m surprised to meet a woman barber.”

“I’m as good as they come and it won’t take long,” she replied. “My name is Lynne, welcome. When I’m finished with these boys, I’d love for you to sit here and I’ll give you what’s called a psychometry reading while I hold something that has your energy in it.”

Lynne was deft with the scissors and clipper, her laugh filled the small shop, the children were captivated.

Elizabeth felt an inner zing to try this reading idea, gave Lynne her wedding ring she still wore, and settled into hearing what would later alter the way she had been thinking about life and its connections to what she liked to call, “falling off the perch.”

A few months later she was driving by the sand dunes of Stinson Beach, California. As she approached the house of a friend she was visiting, a decorative letter A stood out on the house. Elizabeth gasped, stopped the car. She remembered the house owner’s last name began with an A. The barber lady had said while holding the ring, she was ‘seeing’ Elizabeth and her children at a house with the letter A on it.

At the time of the reading, not knowing they’d be invited for this day’s visit, she could not imagine what Lynne was talking about, a house with an A on it. Her curiosity was peeked. Test this out, she thought. On things she didn’t understand, she was a skeptic, but an honest one, willing to look.

When the summer was over, she visited the barber shop again, only to find it closed. In the window was a tiny card that said the location had changed. “Go around the corner, second floor, Monday nights.” The pull was strong to return so the following Monday evening she walked up the stairs and saw Lynne standing by an open door. “Welcome again,” she said, introducing Elizabeth to a young man dressed in a business suit. “This is Ronnie and we’re now the Ana Foundation, a metaphysical study group.

Elizabeth joined the seated group as Lynne explained, “As psychics, Ronnie and I have worked hard for me to become a trance medium. I now can go into a trance and an entity from ‘the other side,’ a spiritual guide, speaks through me. Ronnie sits by me and mentally puts a white light of protection around me.”

”As many of you know, we help others interested in learning, developing and using psychic phenomenon. Ana, who has much advanced knowledge and understandings speaks through me. I never remember or hear what is said while in this state. When I go into trance, Ana will come through me and Ronnie is here to protect me. I’m vulnerable as my etheric system is open to any entity. Ronnie makes sure that it is Ana that comes through.”

During the session, everyone could ask questions of Ana, and Elizabeth was amazed at the help to others that came through Lynne. Over the ensuing weeks her honest skepticism questioned everything. Yet what she was learning was changing her thinking in her daily life. It felt to her as if she already had sensed and known all this before.

“I would like to have that life reading you mentioned,” Elizabeth told Lynne. “I have time now,” said Lynne.

“Loti, the spirit guide that will do your reading, is in charge of the Akashic records. The Akashic record is a universal etheric field in which a record of past lives is imprinted. She’ll give you dates and a few details in your past that have a bearing on this life. I can’t be in trance too long, Ronnie will know when it is time to end it.”

As Elizabeth watched, Lynne concentrated on a paper with Elizabeth’s name on it, Lynne’s eyes closed, and soon a voice from Lynne’s mouth said, “I am here Ronald, I am Loti.” Elizabeth felt chills down her arms as the voice was entirely different from Ana’s and Lynne’s own voice.

During the reading Loti introduced her to her main guide, Jolan. “He has been with you in previous lives. In your friendship you two made a mutual agreement before coming to this life, to have him be your guide.”

As Elizabeth Listened, another voice came through. “I am Jolan and what took you so long to recognize me.” Elizabeth was stunned, yet felt a familiarity to him at once. He spoke a short time, stopped and Loti came through again.

Ronnie took notes as Elizabeth sat fascinated by the difference in voices and didn’t think to write anything down. How fortunate it was to have those notes, as she would later refer to them again and again over the years.

At the end of the reading, Loti said, “Call her gently, Ronald.” As he spoke softly to Lynne, her eyes opened. “I was dreaming I was eating a chocolate sundae,” she laughed and licked her lips. It amazed Elizabeth that Lynne wouldn’t know what was said until later when Ronnie’s notes were transcribed.

It was told that guides earn their own scent when they are successful in their teachings. Halha, an adorable and loving one chose the smell of lilacs. She would ask,”Can you smell me, Ronald?” The room would be filled with that heavenly scent.

As the months went by, the understanding of being guided built trust in Elizabeth to listen to what she had known as her intuition.

A year later, Loti spoke again through Lynne to Elizabeth. “To the one with the happy smile, you need to practice listening with your inner ear, as you have the gift of being clairaudient. Listen with care and you will hear your guide Jolan and other guides helping you with different areas of yours and other’s lives. Ask first that only God’s guides come through you. Protect yourself by envisioning a white light of protection surrounding you. Do this always.”

Years later, Elizabeth was working as a volunteer at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Hearing a familiar voice inside warning her, she turned to her supervisor and said, “I need to leave and check on my Mom who is seriously ill in a hospital in Pasadena.” She almost flew across town, thinking, “Will my understanding of reincarnation hold up if my mother passes on?” The most recent dream she had was of her mother asking her to be with her while going up some steps. When she arrived, the nurse cautioned that it would be only a few minutes before her mom “died.” Sitting with her, holding her mother’s hand, Elizabeth soon felt total silence as the breathing stopped.

“Mother, please give me a sign that your spirit is still right here?” she asked through her tears. On the bulletin board were tacked colorful cards, loving wishes from family and friends. All of a sudden, the front cover of one moved back and forth. Elizabeth knew no draft of air was present. She walked over to the card. On it was written, “I love you and will be with you always.”

As family members or friends passed on, Elizabeth’s emotions were changing. Of course there was the sharing of grief and the ache of missing someone. Her view became one of understanding these ‘deaths’ as “returning to the other side,” our real home. The guides spoke of when there, learning continues. Some wait to reincarnate, to come to this physical world again to live and work on what they’d decided to accomplish. Elizabeth began to help others to explore these ideas.

A friend’s husband living in Elizabeth’s apartment complex ‘died.’ Her friend cried out, “How could God let this happen, why didn’t he do something about this?” As she quieted down she remembered how Elizabeth had spoken at length with her. “We all know that mourning is natural. But what our magnificent creator wants us to do is handle our lives ourselves, with help, not for the creator to take over and do it for us.”

A volleyball rolled to her feet. As Elizabeth threw it back to the players, it reminded her about living with the Golden Rule, “to love one another.” How our ideas, our efforts, our mistakes, our challenges, our hard times, our experiences, and our lives, affect us and others. This is the way we learn and grow, to have many lives, opportunities and experiences.

As the golden sun flashed its trail across the water that day on Waikiki, Elizabeth felt the same sense of life as a path as these memories flooded back. She’d recently read in a famous writer’s essay, “It has been told to us that history doesn’t repeat itself, man does. Many souls/personalities reincarnate again with a positive purpose, then forget it, do not change, repeat their negative behavior with the same need for power, and greed as before. Also, it seems logical that while coming to this world over and over, we learn how pointless it is to be evil.” The sweet scent of plumeria wafting over the sand helped her breathe in with joy how rewarding it was to be good to herself and others.

Elizabeth thought, “Is having multiple times on earth why some talents arise at unbelievable early ages, why some bad actions receive no consequences, why many times things are known without being formally taught them, why memories and physical places have a sense of having been there before, why societies fail?”

As she wrote her last question, she knew the answers were there. “When we’ve really needed help during negative times, wise leaders have come to earth. Jesus, Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, many other leaders have encouraged us to know that each one of us is to live with love while being aware of our individual purposes.”

Elizabeth stood up, shook off the sand from her beach towel. “Each of us is as important as those grains of sand, or a piece of a mosaic,” she recognized. “Without, the beach and the mosaic wouldn’t be complete. I recognize how important my truths are to me and now they can be for others. It makes me feel marvelous knowing that acting on my knowledge is wise and that wisdom cannot be denied.”

Elizabeth realized her sharing had freed her to now write more. She wondered out loud, “How do our attitudes enter in?” but she knew that was for another time to ponder. With a smile on her face she turned to leave the beautiful beach and thought, “Seeing and appreciating the regular repeat of that smart sun sliding below the horizon, reminds us all that tomorrow is always a new day.”