Many decades ago, when I was just four years old, I went outside to play with my two-year-old sister. It was a warm Colorado summer’s afternoon, and dressed in my white sundress, I grabbed a stick from the yard amidst the flowering lilacs, and began to stir some muddy water that had accumulated in an old fishbowl on the patio. This activity kept my sister and me entertained for quite some time, mesmerized by the swirling vortex of bobbing flotsam and jetsam, as my mother hung out the wet laundry to dry in the hot sun.
This memory came flooding back to me just a few years ago, during a trip to England, when the spirit of Gaia came to speak with me for over an hour! Now, this was not my first experience speaking to Gaia, and I love her very much. But I had previously known her by another persona that she uses more often, so as not to intimidate some of her mediums. After all, to hear that one is speaking with Gaia, or Creation, or Mother Nature herself, is not something that every medium is ready for at first. And Gaia’s other persona is named “Tommy.”
Before I return to how this relates to the memory of the fishbowl, I will share some of my earlier experiences with Gaia, as her Tommy persona. Think of Tommy as an aspect of Gaia that is still her, but whom she presents to others as a gentle, boy spirit to make herself more relatable. This aspect of her — Tommy — is a joy guide, which means that he (as when she is presenting this aspect of herself) brings people laughter and joy. Tommy does this by cracking jokes, paying compliments, and displaying evidential spiritual phenomena.
To understand this better, I will share a helpful teaching from my guide, Winston Churchill. There are four types of spirit guides: joy guides, philosophers, chemists or alchemists, and doorkeepers. Oftentimes, one or more of these guides will be Native American, Archangels, and/or extraterrestrials as well. Joy guides bring joy and are often children, philosophers focus on teaching, chemists or alchemists assist with the medical and your body, and doorkeepers keep you safe from dark entities, so are rarely heard from as they are focused on your security. You may even be so connected to one or more of your guides, that you begin to blend with them, or take on aspects of their physical appearance and mannerisms over time! Most people on Earth have three or four spirit guides, but some have upwards of twenty.
According to Winston, there are also four types of animal guides: shadow, life, journey, and messenger. Shadow guides back you up when you are facing yourself and something is not quite right. Life guides come and go during your life, whereas journey guides stay with you throughout. And messenger guides bring you a message, oftentimes in your dreams. Any of your animal guides could be a wolf, bear, mouse, spider, or otherwise! Which animals do you feel most connected to?
As a joy guide, my first experience with Tommy was in a private seance when he used ectoplasm to bang drumsticks on the wall to some music I was playing! He also paid me some compliments and made me feel very joyful indeed. Another time, when my mentor and I were using a ouija board to connect with the spirits, Tommy decided to ignore that and instead began to shake and levitate the very heavy, glass-topped table we were using! It is truly impressive what the spirits can do in the physical.
Gaia has also made herself known, as herself. One day, I was packing up my cats as we were checking out of a vacation rental, when I asked my companions if they knew where my Baby Cat’s toy pom-pom had gone. We looked high and low for a half hour and could not find it anywhere. All of a sudden, my jaw dropped as we looked up and watched the pom-pom appear of thin air near the kitchen ceiling, and then fall to the floor! It was Gaia, playing with the pom-pom, to tease us and make herself known.
On that same trip, I realized one day that I could not find my fitness watch charger anywhere. I was sure I had left it in the center console of my rental car, but after checking repeatedly for a few days in a row, I began to search elsewhere. Well, one evening, I finally checked again, and there it was! Yes, Gaia had “borrowed” it for a few days to take it to another dimension, and to this day I still don’t know why! You will now understand why every time since then that I have misplaced something, I just laugh and say, “Gaia, did you take it?”
So, returning to that cool spring afternoon a few years ago, when Gaia began to speak to me for over an hour, I first heard the unmistakable voice that I knew to be Tommy. After explaining to me that Tommy was an aspect of her, she began to teach me some very important lessons on mediumship, which I will now share with you.
She began by asking me to go into the kitchen and fill a bowl of water. I returned with the bowl of water as she had asked. I then listened to her gravelly voice as she explained that of the five elements, water is the most dynamic and therefore often the most difficult to contain. This made perfect sense because Tommy is known by myself and some other mediums to shy away from water. And at the expense of perhaps sounding not-so-spiritual, I will say that the energy of water moving, such as that of a babbling brook, can be overwhelming to me at times, and can almost feel too “hyperactive” to me as well — it truly is a powerful force.
And in that vein, I will share that a number of years ago, one of my mentors taught me to use water as a tool to propel my physical mediumship. As you may know, tap water is an amazing conductor of electrical charge. So as he explained, you can place your feet in a shallow bowl of water as a tool to turbocharge your channeling session. Well, when I did this as instructed, while he played music to assist, I was astonished when the water began to slosh in time with the beat of the music!
He later explained that this was alchemy. Unbeknownst to me, I was physically harnessing the water element and moving it to the music vibration! Have you ever tried this exercise? You might be surprised at what happens. Stay tuned for a future post on how to use this technique to channel messages from the spirits to paper using a precipitation box!
Well, returning to Gaia’s teaching, her lesson was to take this concept a step further. She asked me to hold my hand above the bowl of water, palm down, and move my palm in a clockwise position, starting with very small circles. And to focus on creating a vortex, just like the fishbowl of my childhood. I tried for a time to do so, but was unsuccessful. And she said, “You have the ability — keep practicing!”
Now, have I practiced consistently since then? No. Have I been able to move it yet? No. And yes, that frustrates me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying. Mediumship is a technical skill just like any other and it requires practice and a little bit of timing.
Have you ever tried to move an element with your hands? To illustrate this further, I will share the following video of Michael Grubb, an American alchemist who claims to be able to manipulate the wind! It is interesting that he uses a similar technique to what many physical mediums use before seances to raise their energy.
For Gaia’s final lesson, she asked me to return to the kitchen, and bring back a bottle of orange squash. For those who may be unfamiliar, squash is an English term for fruit juice concentrate. Perplexed, I did as she asked.
She then explained that the empty bowl of water was a representation of me as the medium. She asked me, “What color is it?” And I answered, “It is clear.”
She then said, “Now imagine that the squash is a spirit with whom you are connecting. Pour a few drops into the water and then tell me what color is it?” This time I answered, “It is orange.”
Gaia went on to explain that this lesson was to teach me that a medium is always affected by the entity whom they are channeling, (or as I would describe it, almost like being “tainted,”) and that it is important to be aware of this. So for example, if I began to channel Aleister Crowley for an audience, I would have my own energy to manage as well as his. And you could add the audience’s energy as well. Then at the conclusion of that channeling, I would have to manage any leftover essence from Crowley and reconnect with my own energy as well.
This was a concept that I was already somewhat familiar with, but Gaia’s visual lesson informed it further. My guide Yellow Feather taught me this same lesson in a different way — he calls it “slipstreaming.” This is when a medium unintentionally channels their own mind. And in my opinion, this is the number one reason why I personally have been confused in the past by certain inconsistencies in channelings by what I thought were reliable mediums.
This can even occur with direct trance mediumship with the spirits. For example, I know of a few well-known physical mediums who sometimes channel spirits inconsistently, such as by channeling only 60 percent of a spirit and 40 percent their own mind. This is just one reason why you could be getting inconsistent readings from “spirits,” who may sound like the real deal in a trance session, but are not necessarily the full percentage. It doesn’t mean that such mediums are not connecting with the spirits at all, nor that there’s not something still to be gained, but you should always listen to your intuition with what comes through. If a message is coming from a high-enough vibration, it will always “feel” right.
These inconsistencies can be confusing and sometimes disappointing at times, but we have to remember that a medium is only human. Also, the spirits have to make their way not only through the five bodies of the human medium, but also the density of the collective physical plane, and even the person receiving the reading. It is amazing that any spirits can get through at all!
I was so grateful for these lessons from Gaia and I cannot wait to work with her again in the future. After saying her farewell, she gently departed, leaving behind a comforting smell of damp earth.
Now, if you are excited about the idea of using your hands and feet to do magic, stay tuned for a future post on Archangel Metatron and how to use the merkaba to do telekinesis!