The day the first transmission came through my pen in January 2000 changed my life forever. Before that day, I was a writer. I had always been a writer and I suppose I always will be a writer. I have little choice in the matter; there is too much magic in what happens between feeling, thought, and the flowing of ink upon a page.

Granny

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandmother’s knee at her little black Underwood typewriter at age three and composing poetry with her. The picture below is of her actual typewriter – I still lug it around with me from move to move. Sometimes we typed out her favourite poems from Byron, Keats and Wordsworth. Once she even let me put my own name on the bottom for pretend, and then we began to type out words that were actually mine. My thoughts, my images, my art. I spoke them, and she typed. The shiny, manual keys were too stiff for my fat little fingers to strike.

I remember when I was strong enough to use that typewriter myself. And the day that I received my first electric typewriter – I was a teenager writing short stories for school. In university I had my first fully electronic typewriter with built-in corrector ribbon, and I was amazed at the ease technology had brought to my life. I wrote my first play on this large, heavy machine, amidst rumours that soon, personal computers would become available, small enough to sit on a table in your own home. And then the turning point came; I wrote my first novel on a tiny, grey, rectangular Macintosh computer which I inherited from my father. When the implications of cut and paste hit me, I realized that in the last fifty years the very foundation of how writers create had been reinvented, and the old ways would never return.

By the time my marriage ended and I was facing each day on my own with three young children, I had no idea where my writing would take me. I had become a student of energy work, and entered deeply into the process of cleansing my energy body on a cellular level. I journaled and I read. I studied my dreams and recorded them like novelettes. Then the night arrived when words began to pour out onto the page while my mind was still asleep, and I wrote things that came from beyond conscious thought. Things I didn’t know, couldn’t know. Some call the process automatic writing, some call it channeling, some call it accessing the Akashic Records. It was the beginning of my expression of a part of myself that is most comfortable in communication with energies and beings beyond this physical plane. There was no question about whether or not what I was experiencing was real. I only wanted to understand what it was I felt, heard and saw. How to know the purpose and source of this stream of energy, information, emotions and images. How to go on living when nothing is the same.

That first transmission was called The Gathering. There were many more to come.

Wake Up

The other night my son invited me to watch a documentary with him called Wake Up. It is the story of Jonas Elrod, a young film-maker who literally wakes up one day to a new perceptual gift and begins to see energy forms from other dimensions. The film chronicles his journey of reckoning with this powerful change in his life as he visits teachers and experts in various fields to ask for their perspective on his experience. He draws upon a fascinating range of world views, from a psychiatrist who assesses him for schizophrenia, to Sufi Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, medium and psychic researcher Umberto Di Grazia, Buddhist Joan Halifax, JZ Knight of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, and Chief of the Chehalis Tribe Mark Colson, where Jonas finally finds his own peace through a sweat lodge and vision quest in the rain.

There are many compelling moments in the film, and Jonas himself and his girlfriend Mara are both such honest and humble individuals that by the end I really wanted to have them both over for dinner.  Not only has Jonas not read the books nor attended the seminars, he initially came from a place of innocence and doubt, and had not been seeking a spiritual connection, so what we witness has a purity and genuine nature that is indisputable, as he wrestles with his fears. In a very moving scene we watch Jonas visit Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, as a group of students wander around a large enclosure blindfolded, searching for their own drawings, which are randomly tucked under covers mounted on the fence. They are practicing making a connection energetically, and amazingly, a number of them succeed. Jonas however becomes lost, and  for him, the exercise becomes one of facing his own resistance.

In the film Jonas describes some of the entities that he sees as angels, and others as demonic. This is particularly interesting to me, as I have participated in many a debate about the existence and nature of dark energies on our planet and in other dimensions. But in a radio interview Jonas later clarifies this view by adding that he grew up steeped in a Christian paradigm, and as he has matured with his gift and becomes less fearful, what he sees becomes less dark. This is a profound revelation I believe, and a corroboration that no matter how we name the light and the shadow, our experience always comes down to the balance of love and fear in our own vibration.  This is a very complex subject that I will address in much more detail in future posts.

The film made it to Oprah, and during their chat, Jonas tells Oprah about her aura, and some energy forms behind one of the cameras. But what I love so much about all of this, what had me personally jumping up and down, was to witness someone else’s journey with an energetic awakening, examined with humility and finally integrated via his own personal “waking up.”

Gifts and Curses

What I have experienced in common with Jonas is a belly full of conflicted emotions about the gift I have been given. I also had not sought these experiences. I also feared that others would think I was crazy, and indeed some did. One of my family members to this day believes I am either disturbed or an intentional fraud. But far more challenging than the judgement of others was the realization that I could never go back to being who I was before this happened to me. I was a published novelist and playwright, but I could never write from the same cognitive place again. My plans to be Canada’s next Margaret Laurence would never come to pass, because my language of creation had changed utterly. And then there was the small question of why this had happened to me, and what I was meant to do with it. Quite beyond my subjective experience, what was the purpose of this ability, and how was I meant to serve?

In Wake Up, Jonas is asked by Sufi Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, where do you want to take this experience within yourself? When Jonas says, I’m all about a spiritual growth and transformation, the reply he receives from the Sufi is, that’s a very nice saying, but what does it mean to you? Jonas is caught red handed in the act of leaping into a “spiritually correct” response, reaching to fill the shoes of expectation that go along with such gifts. I know that trap all too well.

For years I received my oracular poems for a widening group of friends and folks within my community who loved them. My world came to revolve around what I could give to others, how I could help them with questions they were unable to resolve by themselves. Those who were receptive and understood the transmissions could never seem to get enough, and some individuals have collections of 50, 100 or more. I received guidance for years without charging a fee. When I did begin to ask for payment, I wrestled deeply with the idea. I had jumped into an unconscious serving role without allowing my own process with the experience to be fully explored. At one point years ago I did a rough calculation about how many transmissions I had received since that first one, and gave up counting at about three thousand. If I look at where I am now, that’s a lot of chatting with the guides.

Listening

My abilities differ from Jonas’ in that I do not see energetic forms with my eyes. I mostly receive in a light trance state with closed eyes, and while I do see images, often very specific and varied, the bulk of what I sense is a flow of energetic information that I “listen” to, and translate as one would Morse Code. This listening is only occasionally auditory, and primarily energetic. With the information may come emotion, physical sensation, warm or cold, and the sense of being inside the heart and mind of an individual. In live spoken readings, many of the words that come almost speak themselves, and sometimes their meaning may not be fully clear to me until explained by the client, in relation to their life.

In many ways I was resistant to exploring the depth and purpose of my gift in my own heart, as I so reflexively hurried to give it away. Fourteen years later and I am entering a whole new stage of coming to know this aspect of myself. Any part of us that is sensitive, that opens in trust to realms that others may question or even deny is a shy Self, protected with good cause. And yet how can we invite a grounded, balanced service to others, until we know our own purpose and needs? It is the artist who paints to please herself whose work is most true, most inviting. It is the composer who pulls from her own wisdom and heartache who moves us the most with her song.

Thank you to Jonas and the wise ones who supported him upon his path. Thank you to all those who dare to come out with their differences, their eccentricities, their gifts and their curses. Thank you above all to the divine source of these awakenings, and the beings of love which surround us in our innocence and ignorance as we grow.

Do you have a connection to other dimensions or the etheric realm? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

love, Adi

Wake Up official website