A small rant

Like a cross between Chuck-E-Cheese and a casino, Dave & Buster's is a rabid mix of noise, games, lights, bells, whistles, and overpriced food and libations designed to disorient, confuse, confound, and pickpocket its customers.  It is economic sleight-of-hand for the wage slave consumers so trained and ingrained to overspend, overindulge, overextend until they belong wholly to the system with no means of escape. 

It is a horrifying vision of the future--and I thought Walmart was scary!

I am NOT a fortune-teller!

Talked to a bookstore owner tonight—wanting to know what kind of reader I was and how “predictive” I am, because that is what their clients expect.  (Only because you lead them to expect it!)

Once again, I want to scream at the world, “I am NOT a magic eight ball!” 

My job as a psychic intuitive is to help people understand the spiritual themes in their lives and help them improve their relationship with their own life, to help develop their own intuition. But I am constantly faced with clients and bookstore owners who expect me to tell the client something like  will I find a job this week, or will my abusive boyfriend come back to me?   

The fundamental problem with this is the idea that they are at the mercy of the fates in some way and that I can see that.  Yes, in some ways we are at the mercy of fate, but we are also empowered to make choices in our lives.  And those choices—made today, in this moment—have the potential to change our fates immediately and irrevocably.  But most people who want “psychic advice” want some “Madame Marie” who tells fortunes and removes curses and restores lost loves.  That is bullshit, scam artist, steal-your-money practice.  I am a real psychic. I can read people and places and help others find their spiritual calling.  But I am not the gypsy fortune-teller on the corner, or the mentalist who is out to convince you through trickery that I can “read your mind.”  

As long as the public insists on this kind of “performance,” real psychics will have a hard time. I expected better of the bookstores and the New Age culture in Phoenix.  I guess I have simply moved beyond that limited, 800-number mentality.  

It is not my job as a psychic intuitive to tell you what will happen to you. Nobody can tell you that.  It IS my job to tell you what Spirit gives me to share with you, to help you have a better connection with your own spirit and your own spiritual journey. If you are up for that, then call me.  Otherwise, call some 800 number. 

A Powerful Re-Visit

Today we went past the old Apache Motel, now torn down.  I felt a strong draw to go there and made Rick turn around and go back.   

There we were, the pad of the floor of our old room there still evident in the empty lot.  The minute I stepped on to it, all the old emotions came flooding back. 

Sobbing, remembering.  Here is where we slept.  Here is where the bathroom was.  Here is the very spot where I first began writing Kokopelli—the very spot.  Then the memories of hardship and love, despair and comfort and all the tears they deserved.  It was here that I realized that I was ready to become a teacher, that I had somehow acquired wisdom and some kind of confidence.  It was here that we deepened our love, worked together to make life better.  It was here that we experienced elementals literally walking through our space, where I--for the first and only time--controlled my psychokinetic abilities, where I practiced gratitude and creativity and holding on to hope despite the dark circumstances.  There was much sadness in this place--my little kitty Lofty was killed there on New Years Eve 1996 and we met Tammy and Rooster--friends who later proved to be our salvation, and Frank the musician who had played with Willie Nelson, but crawled into a bottle when his ten-year-old son was killed.  We all had our pain.

The night we left this place was the night of the Phoenix UFOs--March 13, 1997.  I never saw them.  I was busy packing and crying and worrying, then drinking tequila with my last few dollars, having no idea where we would go or what we would do.

Then today, crying and remembering and standing there in the setting sun, comes a woman.  A woman that I immediately felt was familiar, though I had never met her before.  And she approached me, and we laughed and cried and I told her my story, and she told me that she lived just “there” at the corner of the property and she tried to apologize to me for not cleaning it up, but I shushed her and told her my story with this spot, this place.  And together we cried and hugged and I told her things that I think gave her hope.  She has lived in this camp on this spot for ten years.  Ten years! I could tell she had some kind of mental illness—delusions or confusion, but not bad.  Maybe slight schizophrenia, maybe just the disorientation that comes from being lost and forgotten and depressed for years, but for the majority of our conversation, we made complete sense to one another.  There was a lovely light in  her eyes, a light that circumstances had tried unsuccessfully to extinguish.  I believe in her and I told her so.

And while Rick and I are not rich, we are better off than we were there on the ‘Vard.  And I know that something good is coming for my spirit friend, Leesa.  She deserves better than she has been afforded.  I deserved better than to experience homelessness.  In fact, I can’t think of anyone who deserves to be forgotten, neglected, dismissed as useless.  Leesa has talent and insight that nobody else can give the world.  Why do we let people—especially women—become invisible and unvalued?  

This was my spirit lesson today and for this I am grateful.  

The emotions came, unbidden, to the surface quickly.

Greeting the woman I soon learned was named Leesa.  I felt somehow we needed each other.

Rick captured this sunset there at the ruins of what used to be the Apache Motel.

Coming Back to Phoenix

Sun dogs over Buckeye.

We arrived in the evening and went straight to Buckeye, where our old friend, Jimmy Parker put us up in his parking lot.  This place holds a lot of memories for us.  I worked in this building with the Desert Sun newspaper (now defunct) for about two years.  The place hasn't changed much, but sadly Jimmy is moving out of the iconic old building.  Sad to see him go. 

Parked at Jimmy's.

This building is right out of the Old West.

Back patio.

Jimmy's office.

Stirrup collection.

Waiting room.

Just a few of Jimmy's massive walking stick collection.

It was neat to discover little signs that I had once been there--like being your own archaeologist.  I even found one while having to reset the circuit breakers--signs from 15 years ago that I had once occupied part of this space.

One of my paintings still adorns Jimmy's office.

Although the image is fuzzy, you can clearly see "Catt's office" on the circuit breaker.

 The next day, we visited Tempe to find Rick's brother and his old friend, Bobby.

Glenn and Rick.

A new highway to nowhere in West Phoenix.

Hobo Joe in Buckeye.

Hobo Joe.

Bobby and Rick, old friends remet at Pete's Fish N Chips in Tempe. 

Sunday brought a little family reunion at Rick's sister's house.

Rick (back to us), Glenn, his wife Frances, Greg (Georgia's husband), and Rick's sister Georgia.

Greg, Alex (Greg and Georgia's son), Georgia and Rick.