It was in 1993 when I was 37 years old I officially became psychic. Since then I learned everybody is born psychic, but it wasn’t until my adulthood that I realized something strange was going on and my curiosity got the better of me.

In the summer of 1963 when we lived in South Carolina I was 8 years old.  Everybody had to take a nap at the same time.  I really wasn’t that tired being too old for naps, so I amused myself watching the faces on the ceiling.  I never told anybody about them, but they were interesting.  Men and women smiling at me.  Just faces.  Thinking about it now I realize the afternoon light dappled through the flowery curtains and made patterns on the ceiling. 

As these things go, it was a meandering path. 

When I was a little older and we lived in Norway I attended a slumber party.  Someone produced a Ouija board and much screaming ensued.  Hey, it’s what little girls do at slumber parties.  Of course, the planchette moved…more screaming…and everybody denied moving it. 

The first “spiritual” book to literally land at my feet was “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Parmahansa Yogananda. That book started me on my journey. I’ve read it several times since then.  Funny story, though, was me walking through the library taking a short cut through the religious section and from the bottom shelf, the book tipped out and landed in front of me.

And, on it went with Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha”, James Michener’s “Exodus” and “The Source”, “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass, and “Seth” by Jane Roberts were some of the books I read. Seth is my guide now. There are certainly other teachers and guides I talk to, but he was my first and I consider him to be my most constant guide.

As a teenager, I tried my hand at meditating and astral travel. Shot right out of the top of my head into the nighttime starry skies with that one. Scared me and I didn’t meditate or do any astral traveling again for 20 years.

So, over the years there were bits and pieces that, as I remember them, tend to stick out on my meandering path to becoming a channel.

In high school, I had a vivid dream of my grandmother. I awakened during the night and saw a woman with brown hair and a ponytail standing in my bedroom with her arms crossed looking at my calendar. She did not look like Grandma Nieman, but I knew in my heart it was her. Scared me too. Who sees people in their bedroom in the dead of night alive or dead? I squeezed my eyes shut opening them again to see her still there. Yikes. I squeezed them shut a second time and when I opened them again Grandma was gone. 

In the morning I told my mother about the dream expecting her to say it was probably something I ate. Instead, she said she didn’t doubt it at all. She said her mother was psychic. It helped to know that when years later psychic things started happening to me. Somebody told me stuff like that runs in families, generally through the women. 

The groundwork was being laid for what happened later in 1993. I guess it was a couple of years prior to that when our finances were hurting and I chanced upon a book called, “Creating Money” by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer. It was a library book and I was so intrigued by it that I said to Dennis I wanted to buy it. He said, “You don’t have to. It’s on the bookshelf.” He pointed and three feet away there it sat. He had been interested in the same thing years prior to that. Interesting how he and my interests have been so alike. I started studying the book and a year or so later I had manifested a piano. 

I began to experience psychic phenomena that were really unsettling. So, unsettling that I went to the library looking for information about ESP. I picked the first book at hand opened the book at random to see, and I am paraphrasing here, “It is an ordinary thing to experience ESP.” That was all I needed. 

So, while seeing the number 222 everywhere, breaking the video player from across the room, hearing kitchen cupboards slamming when nobody was nearby, and knowing who was on the phone calling before I answered it I persevered in my quest to figure out what was going on.

I began reading with a purpose and relaxed enough to believe the books coming my way were the ones I needed to be reading. I re-opened “Seth” by Jane Roberts a favorite book from my teenage years. From there I began to read “Messages From Michael” by Chelsie Quinn Yarbro. And, finally found, “Opening to Channel” surprisingly by the same folks who had written “Creating Money” Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer.

Somewhere along this meandering path, I learned how to draw.  I had read Betty Edwards book, “Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain”. Years later I was able to take an adult school class using Betty’s techniques. It turns out I needed this training to sort of twist my focus away from seeing what I expected to see to a place where possibilities weave and dance. 

All of this needed to go into the soup of what was to eventually be me learning how to be a channel.

I remember I’d been studying, “Opening to Channel” for the longest time and having a difficult time. Finally, I remembered that Jane Roberts and her husband Robert had talked to Seth in the beginning with a Ouija board. I  remembered the folks in “Messages From Michael” used a Ouija board too. And, of course, I’d had my own limited use of it during that slumber party so many years before in Norway. So, I went out and bought a Ouija board.

My husband and I worked the board together and it did, in fact, work.  We talked to his guide, Nathan for a while.  Eventually, Nathan said he did not wish to communicate via the board and so we stopped.

I was bereft.  Actually, it was maddening because I wanted to talk to my guide.  Months passed and it dawned on me that both Jane and the people who channeled Michael worked the board by themselves. If they could do it maybe I could too. So, I practiced for what seemed to the longest time. Nothing, absolutely nothing happened.  I used to drag the planchette around with one hand so I knew what it would feel like and I wouldn’t miss anything if it did end up working. Time passed and nothing happened.

One day I realized I’d been wasting time trying to make the Ouija board work. My guide hadn’t ever said anything to me either using the techniques taught by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer or the Ouija Board. I remember having this big sort of thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. It said, “You have to become as innocent as a child.” Okay. Advice. But I decided to go back to writing. See, I’m a writer too. Lots of journaling which is also necessary for learning how to channel. I figured that I could hedge my bets by allowing my left hand to rest upon the planchette with the Ouija Board at my side and cover the keyboard with my right. It was a little awkward, but I soon got used to it. I was writing, but certainly slower than I normally did with two hands.

Zoom. Wham! The planchette zipped across the board. Fast. God, I still remember how thrilled I was. I quickly got both hands on it and moved the keyboard off to the side. The planchette meandered all over the board not spelling anything out. Just wandered all over the board. I asked, “Are you my guide?” The planchette moved to, “Yes”. I didn’t know what to ask next. The planchette started spelling out S-E-T-H. There was no more communication after that. It just moved all over the board again and again. But that’s a whole new story and I’ll address it later on. At the age of 37, I met my guide.