A New Spirit Friend

For the past eight days, I've been flattened by the nasty cold that's been going around. I'm still not even close to 50%, but tonight's bedtime conversation with Lucas motivated me to drag my butt into the office to document the moment. Please don't expect my best writing tonight. I can barely see through these bloodshot eyes.

Lately, Lucas has been pretending to play with Ella, our neighbor girl up the street – or so I thought. He's been saying things like, "Ella is laying here with me on the bed," or "Ella is jumping with me." This seems to make him wildly happy. I figured he must have a little bit of a crush on her. She wouldn't be the first one.

So tonight, as we were wrapping up the bedtime routine, he said dreamily, "Ella is putting her cheek on the pillow." And for some reason, I thought to ask him if he meant he was pretending that the Ella who lives up the street was putting her cheek on the pillow. He said no, this was a different Ella. So I asked him what she looked like. Here is his description:

"She is pink, with pink hair. She has something blue on her belly. Her arms are pink. She has something blue on her belly. She has two arms and they both are pink. Her ears look like they have moisties on them. Her belly has blue, (giggle) and she has something white on the back of her butt."

"Moisties" is the silly word we use for Aquaphor, the heavy-duty Vaseline-like moisturizer we often have to use on Lucas' dry cheeks. We've never used it on his ears, and that is the part of the description that caused me to really take note. Sure, he could be making all of it up, but what on earth would inspire him to describe an imaginary friend's ears as looking like they're covered in Aquaphor? I believe he was actually describing what he saw, as he noticed it.

So now we add Ella to the growing list of spirits he plays with. Trea is another one. I don't think I've written about her yet. She's purple and hangs out by the overhead light in his room. She doesn't like to come down to play like Ella does, but he is delighted by her presence nonetheless.

It's an interesting life…

 

 

Twilight Zone Episodes – without the scary stuff

In a spiral notebook next to my computer, I keep a list of post topics about Lucas and his unusual behavior. At first I wanted to hoard the list, doling out stories one at a time, maybe spacing them out a bit in case I hit a dry spell. But the list keeps growing, and it occurred to me that there is no shortage of material in this household.

Therefore, in order to stay caught up, today I give you a "three-for-one". The following are three short examples of recent twilight-zone moments with Lucas.

Moment #1


Lucas had gotten very attached to a cd by a beautiful singer/songwriter friend of ours who writes contemporary spiritual songs. He loved this cd so much that he asked for it to play nonstop whenever we were in the car. After listening to the entire cd a dozen times, he decided that his favorite song was the one called, "As I Surrender." Now, not only did we need to listen to this one cd, but we needed to play only this one track – over and over and over again, nonstop.


The significance was not lost on me. This whole concept of surrender is a constant struggle for me, and my need to control everything usually tops my list of unhealthy habits. I laughed at the possibility that he was trying to get this to sink in.


When I asked him why he wanted to listen to it, he simply said he was "practicing the words." Sure enough, he has the whole thing memorized now, and sings it to me regularly when we're not in the car.


Moment #2


While Lucas is a very social and friendly boy, he tends to keep himself physically distant to most. There are very few people he allows to hold him, and even with us, he is not a cuddly or affectionate little guy. He shows his love in other ways.


We recently met a delightful woman who I later found out is also a highly gifted intuitive. I was holding Lucas when we were introduced. He looked straight into her eyes, reached out his hand, and held it on her cheek for a few moments. This was so out of character! He'd never done anything like it before – not even to me!


She later told me that his gaze and touch sent out a blast of energy and recognition. He knew who and what she was instantly, and he was letting her know.


Moment #3


My husband has been recently considering a career change away from music. This has had him pretty bummed out and searching for answers.


He was playing in the den with Lucas the other day, and Lucas was messing with our bookshelf. He pulled out an old book of mine by Parker Palmer and handed it to Toby, asking him to read it to him. The book was called, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.


Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo…


Do any of you have moments like these to share? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Lucas Does Some Journaling

This post is just for fun. No spirits or psychic tales today.

This morning, Lucas got up on his own – a new habit these days. I was still in bed when I heard some fumbling around in the hall outside our bedroom, so I asked him what he was doing. He pushed our bedroom door open and poked his head inside.

"Um, I'm going to put these toys away and then do some journaling and some writing," he answered.

Okaaaay.

My practice is to journal first thing in the morning, but it's usually before Lucas gets up. I didn't know he was aware of it. I guess Toby must have gotten him up sometime while I was still writing and explained to him that I needed to finish my journaling before Lucas could come in.

I lifted him up to join me on the bed and he said, "Lucas will do his journaling on the other pillow."

As he settled in beside me, he remembered that he was holding all of his toys and said, "I said to myself, 'Hey, what are these toys doing here?!'"

This boy cracks me up.

Our Mystery Housemate

Lucas has had a hard time going to sleep lately. He keeps insisting that "something's bothering me." This is how lets me know that an unwanted spirit or some other invisible-to-me being is in the room. They tend to hang out in the corners of the ceiling or around the overhead light, but lately he's been sighting them by the foot of his bed. As you can imagine, he finds this troubling.

Since we've been dealing with this for over a year now, my husband and I have some strategies in place for handling these intruders. Here are a few of them we use regularly:

• We always say a prayer of protection with Lucas before he goes to sleep.
  
• We remind him that he is pure love and that he has the power to send away anything that is not pure love by simply inviting it to leave.
  
• We tell him to imagine he is surrounded by pure, white light, and that the room is filled with pure, white light.
  
• We tell him to say, "I am love, and only love gets in."
  

We have also discussed that some visitors are here as his angels and spirit guides, and that he'll know them by how he feels when they are near. He has carried on and laughed regularly with these folks (who include Nani) since before he could talk. I think he knows the difference.

Lately, none of our strategies have been working very well. I don't know if it was one particularly stubborn fairy, or if there were different ones, but Lucas has been getting so agitated and afraid that I decided to do another space clearing this afternoon. I smudged with sage and clapped in the corners. Sometimes we use these beautiful Tibetan bells, but I couldn't find them today. Lucas was very nervous throughout the whole procedure, and at the end, he pointed at the door to the hall while hugging my legs. "He went out there."

Suddenly, I put two and two together. "He" was heading to the bathroom.

We have a half-bath in our den. According to Lucas, "something" has lived in there for at least the past year in which he's been communicating with us about this. Lucas always slams the door shut if it's been left open or cracked, and then comes running to us, clinging to our legs and muttering, "Something's coming!" (Another version of "something's bothering me.")

So … I think our bathroom friend is getting a little bold and is venturing into Lucas' bedroom. It's just a hunch.

It might be time to bring in a professional.

Anyone know of a reputable Ghost Buster?

Channeling Nani

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="277" caption="Nani on her 100th birthday"][/caption]

My grandmother was a bit of a petty thief during her 100 plus years of life.

Petty is the key word. I'm talking about sneaking small items - usually produce - out of the grocery store. She would wear jackets with deep pockets so she could tuck away a few shallots this time, a tomato on the next trip. She might hide fresh herbs in a bunch of parsley. Small chocolates also disappeared when she walked by.

Her sleight of hand was perfected over the years. You could watch her like a hawk and still never catch her in the act. Once outside the store, she'd proudly show me her catch with a twinkle in her eye and a little chuckle.

It's not that she couldn't afford to pay for these items. When we asked her why she did it, she brushed off the question with something like, "I've given that store so much business. What's a little garlic? They won't miss it." She just enjoyed the excitement of it.

I always found it rather funny, and almost a point of twisted pride. She was my bold and sparkling Nani, my favorite person on the planet, and this little thrill game was just something she'd done for as long as I remember.

One time, years ago, I was walking with her to Walgreens to get some jelly beans. Outside the store, she noticed a homeless man sitting against the wall. As we walked past, she muttered to me, "Poor Bum!" (Yes, she was about as politically incorrect as you could get. That's what made ordinary walks so much fun!) As we walked into the store, she said, "Lexi, I'm gonna get that bum a candy bar, poor ..something something in Italian." I suggested a large Snickers Bar since it had peanuts. It seemed heartier, somehow, for someone who wasn't getting regular meals. She said no, it was too big. I was confused. Too big? What did that matter?

"I'm gonna swipe it," she whispered.

"No, Nani, I'll buy it then," I said, reaching for the thin Hershey bar she was holding on top of her bag of jelly beans. She pushed my hand away and turned around, and in the blink of an eye, the Hershey bar had disappeared. We walked up to the register and she paid for the jelly beans while my heart pounded in my ears. As we approached the homeless man outside, she reached into her large jacket pocket and pulled out the Hershey bar. Thrusting it into his hand she said, "Enjoy dessert!" I looked over at her in amazement, and she looked back, chuckling, her mischievous eyes sparkling.

You might be wondering what this has to do with Lucas. Last year, I posted this story about Lucas seeing Nani, who passed two months before I became pregnant with him. He still sees her frequently, and we've noticed many of her mannerisms showing up in his gestures. We have the clear feeling she's one of his primary spirit guides.

She must have been whispering in his ear the other day when the following happened.

We were at So Childish, a wonderful local children's boutique, buying a birthday gift for a little friend. Lucas was browsing the store and discovered the same little bath paints I'd bought him for Christmas. He was very excited and wanted to get them – again. Explaining that we already had them at home didn't make a difference to him. He was very insistent. I finally redirected him to a neat toy he could play with while Larissa rang up my purchase.

Bag in hand, I turned to find Lucas in the corner, struggling to stuff a bath paint into his pants pocket. The other pocket was already bulging.

"No Lucas!" I cried out, quickly hiding my surprised laughter. What on earth? Where did he get this idea? "No, no. We don't just take things we want. I know you really want these bath paints, but if we want to take something home, we have to pay for it first. Now go put them back, please."

He looked at me with a smile, eyes twinkling, and ran to put them back.

Having fun, Nani?

Lucas Wanted a Water Birth

I think all babies arrive here with an intimate knowledge of the other side - source, God, spirit, whatever you want to call it. Ever since my pregnancy, I've had a hunch that Lucas was going to remember that knowledge longer than most, maybe into adulthood.

One of my first clues came by way of a random sociology textbook left on my doorstep during the first trimester of my pregnancy.

Let me back up a bit. For all of my spiritual curiosity and healthful habits, I hadn't given much thought to the birth process. Moreover, I am a wimp when it comes to pain. If such a thing could be measured, I am sure I would hold the record of having the lowest pain threshold known to womankind. The mere idea of even a shot sends me into tears.

Therefore … my thinking about this whole giving birth thing was along the lines of, "As soon as I start going into labor, call in the anesthesiologist!" Certainly I'd be in a hospital. Where else would people go to have babies? By that, I meant people who weren't hippies or Europeans. I was neither, so – hospital it would be.

I already had my stack of mainstream pregnancy books: What to Expect, Girlfriend's Guide, and all the others that made sure you got the message that it was perfectly okay for you to ask for your epidural. It was your right as a laboring woman.

"See!" I thought. "There's no shame in getting a little help with the pain. Everyone does it. Whew! What a relief!"

And then the book arrived.

It was just sitting there on my front doorstep one day. There was no note attached. The book was called Birth as an American Rite of Passage, written by Robbie E. Davis-Floyd. One editorial summary of the book claims,

"Hospital birth, as opposed to homebirth, is a particularly American rite of passage and reflects our cultural belief in the superiority of science over nature, machines over bodies, men over women, institutions over individuals."

Curious, of course, I picked it up and began to read the introduction. Before I'd even reached chapter one, my entire birthing paradigm had been rocked off its cradle, and I knew I'd be birthing Lucas at home, and in water, no less. I had no doubt about it whatsoever.

How could reading the introduction of one book sway me so completely? I think it's because it wasn't the book that did it. It was Lucas pulling some strings. The book was his way of getting this information to me, and as soon as I read it, I knew what he meant for me to do. It wasn't about me. It was about what he needed on entry into this strange new world so that he could protect his gifts and remain connected to the other realm.

Honestly, when I look back at my birthing experience, it was hell on earth for me, (thanks a lot, Lucas!) but he was perfectly fine through the whole thing. It was what he wanted. When he finally emerged, calm and serene, I held him against me in the warm water of the birthing pool, and he stared into my eyes with an intensity I'll never forget. "That's right," he seemed to be saying, "You did well. Thanks for following through on the memo."

Readers, did any of you suspect that your unborn child was trying to communicate with you? Did you just chalk it up to imaginative or wishful thinking? Think again. What if you were to honor all of those hunches? How might you see yourself and your child differently?

Indigo and Crystal Children - An Overview

Let me preface this by saying that I'm no expert on Indigo or Crystal children. I've read a few books and, more importantly, have met a number of interesting people through the years who've had some firsthand information about them. This phenomenon has intrigued me since my days as an elementary school teacher, and I've met, taught, and loved quite a few of these children.

That said, I'm a mother simply sharing my own experiences and information that I find useful along the way.

So what on earth am I talking about when I throw around these labels of Indigo and Crystal? (BTW, I'm not a fan of labels, but to communicate effectively, we can't really escape them.) I'm talking about large groups of highly sensitive and intuitive children being born with a distinct purpose to help shift our consciousness. According to some people, they've been showing up for the past hundred years or so, but the numbers have grown recently.

You may recognize the previous wave of them, the Indigos, as the active, imaginative and angry generation we drugged with Ritalin. They have excellent BS detectors and don't stand for anything that smacks of dishonesty or corruption. Most of them are in high school and beyond now. As Doreen Virtue states in her article, Indigo and Crystal Children,

"Indigos have a warrior spirit, because their collective purpose is to mash down old systems that no longer serve us. They are here to quash government, educational, and legal systems that lack integrity. To accomplish this end, they need tempers and fiery determination."

"Those adults who resist change and who value conformity may misunderstand the Indigos. They are often mislabeled with psychiatric diagnoses of Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Sadly, when they are medicated, the Indigos often lose their beautiful sensitivity, spiritual gifts and warrior energy."

They came to shake things up and show us a better way. Instead, we drugged them, dulled their gifts, and chose to maintain the status quo.

The special kids arriving in the current wave are identified as Crystal children. These kids are also highly psychic and very sensitive to other people's energy, but they are not the angry warriors that the Indigos are. Instead, they are mainly happy, easy-going children who are here to inspire change rather than force it.

These children are younger, ranging from those still waiting to be born up through early elementary school. Many of them have or will develop food allergies and rashes due to their incredible sensitivity to their environment. They read people instantly and will clearly let you know if they feel uncomfortable with someone. They will also keenly sense other people's emotions and will go out of their way to bring joy to people who need it. These are the children who light up a grocery store aisle, leaving a trail of smiles in their wake.

So there it is in a very tiny and general nutshell.

As I share more of my personal experiences of living with Lucas, it will become clearer what makes him a Crystal child, and hopefully, this will make it easier for you to recognize these gifts in other children you know.

Stay tuned for a story about Lucas redirecting me from the womb to birth at home.

Switching Gears to Crystal Kids

I've got it! I now have clarity about the focus of this blog moving forward. Some of you may not like it and you will choose to leave. That's okay. I can't please everyone, and since the most popular post of the past year is my recipe for easy mac n cheese, I can safely say I'm obviously not reaching my target audience just yet.

The funny thing is, I've actually come full circle. If you go back to read some of my very first posts, like this one or this one, then you'll have a good idea of what I'll be writing about moving forward.

Over the past year, I've been experimenting with different ideas and projects in an effort to find the one thing I'm most passionate about. Motherhood has a way of unleashing an avalanche of creativity, and I have certainly not been at a loss for ideas. All of these were expressed in some way or another in my blog posts, but nothing was hitting the mark. I felt equally interested in all of these projects, but not really passionate about any of them. I loved the writing part, but the topic I could fully embrace was eluding me.

For some cockamamie reason, I thought the motherhood thing (the thing I'd longed for my entire life more than anything else) needed to be separated out of the equation. Sure, my projects included mothers, or targeted mothers, or helped mothers, but I somehow forgot that MY MOTHERHOOD, and this mystical being who is my son, were the things I felt most deeply about. I finally realized that I didn't need to look beyond them to find a separate focus for my writing.

Um … duh.

I suppose I ruled out the idea of a "mommy-blog" early on because I didn't think I was funny enough to make my everyday life interesting to readers. I'm certainly no Heather Armstrong.

And that's the point. I get it now. I am NOT Heather Armstrong or any other blogger. My voice is unique. What I have to share about my son may also feel unique right now, but I know there are many, many children like him, and hopefully in reading this blog, their parents will come to recognize it, respect it, and nurture it, too.

I'm talking about Crystal children, these sensitive and highly intuitive (psychic) people who are here to push the evolution of our human consciousness. Lucas is one of them.

See, right there, I probably lost a bunch of you. That's okay. No offense taken.

I've resisted writing about this for a number of reasons, one of them being that I didn't want people to think I was crazy. Well, no one ever accomplished great things by playing it safe. So here it is, then. My alternative, woo-woo, new thought, and spiritual inner life being exposed from behind the façade of my mostly mainstream-looking life.

I think it'll be an interesting ride.