Cartographers used to write on maps, “Here be dragons,” when they reached places beyond their known world. When humans touch the void, they say, “Here is magic.”
-From Trickster Drift, by Eden Robinson
I was born with “special abilities.” Initially, these came in the form of telepathic communication. Although I was too young to form words, my thoughts and needs were picked up on by my mother. Later, when I began to understand words, I would not voice them. I would think them and my mother and my oldest sister would hear them and respond by thinking back to me. We could hear each others’ thoughts clear as day. I could also hear other people’s thoughts clear as day, as could they. Sometimes the challenge was in figuring out what was spoken out loud and what was not.
My mother taught me about this thing called “tact.” You see, when I was almost three years old I had still not voiced a word, let alone a sentence. Then, one day while I was playing with my Hotwheels car in the kitchen, my mom’s friend came to the door in tears. My mom was putting the kettle on for tea (because that is what you do when someone is upset…you make a hot beverage to help calm them and the situation) and I got these images in my head of my mom’s friend finding out her husband was cheating on her. I then got an image of him coming back to her when that relationship ended. Suddenly my wee voice came out and what I said to my mom’s friend was, “Don’t worry. He is coming back to you and ending it with her.” My mom’s friend, who had barely composed herself burst into tears. My mother scooped me up and placed me in the living room, turned me to look at her and thought to me, “I see you have learned to use your voice.” Then, with her words, she said, “Stay in the living room to play while she’s here. After that we are going to have a chat about tact.”
When that chat happened (I think it would have been about 2 hours later) she asked me how I knew what had happened? I explained the images that flew through my mind. She then asked how I know he’s coming back? I told her that was another image. This is when she realized that my telepathic abilities were just the beginning of a life of developmental abilities. Telepathy does not give you precognitive insights. That is an entirely different branch of the tree. But the thing is that all the branches are interconnected with each other through the body of the tree. They are also interconnected with the roots, each of which corresponds with each branch at the top. Those roots also intertwine with those of other trees. So energetic conscious connection can happen amongst every tree in an entire grove of trees. The thing is, it does not stop there. Trees all around the world are interconnected, so they can communicate globally. This is, for me, how everything that I have learned how to do happens. We are all consciously or subconsciously interconnected through what is called the Dream Weave. Because of that interconnectedness we can communicate over vast distances without radios or cell phones or land lines. We ARE the landline, so to speak.
The thing is that so many humans have become distanced from those inate abilities. Some think that those abilities are developing because of evolution. But this is not accurate. Evolution is the process of letting go of what is not required. This leaves space for older things that are required to express themselves. “Psychic abilities” are not developing as something new. They have always been there. They are as old as our species has existed. But some of us allow space for it and let go of things that are not required for our survival. When you are “tuning in” to your intuitive processes you are not adding those like pepper sprinkled on your food. You are swiping the food away from the spice that holds the intuition. This is why so many people struggle with the development. They are going about it backwards. They struggle because they are not letting go. It is not about adding focus to the process. It is about emptying the mind so that all the clutter gets out of the way. I have watched people “try” to meditate, sitting there with their faces pinched into a knot as they “focus” themselves. Truthfully, it makes them look constipated. But try to tell them to empty their mind and simply focus on the breath as it moves in and out of their bodies and suddenly you get things like, “Oh no! That is not how this works!” So, they stuggle some more.
Something I have found though is that when many people encounter those of us who are gifted you would think that they suddenly witnessed the existence of a dragon in their midst. Fear and confusion are the usual first responses. That can get dangerous, depending upon how they process those feelings. After all, witch burnings and drownings and murders have happened for centuries. Nobody is immune to the hostility and aggression that is fueled by ignorance.
What they need to recognize is that they have gazed into the void, intentionally or unintentionally. And what they have found is MAGIC. I often say that science is the magic that humans understand and magic is the science that humans have yet to understand or come to terms with. Fortunately, there are many who also find that place of magic that is beyond the generalized map of existence and, instead of fearing it, will be excited by the opportunity. Those are our people. Those are the people who will do the work of “letting go” and making space for the magic that has always resided within them, within their ancestors, within all creatures on this planet and beyond. That’s right…beyond. Because this planet is not the ONLY one in the Universe with intelligent life that can also consciously tap into the Dream Weave. If ours was the only planet with intelligent life it would be a VAST WASTE OF SPACE.
We are all born with special gifts. Most are trained to ignore them. Some are encouraged to accept and develop them so that they know best how to utilize them. I grew up in a family that openly discussed these things around the dinner table. My mother and grandmother actively encouraged me to explore my gifts. This is why I got so strong in them. I was not told that they don’t exist or that they are simply my imagination, or that they are evil or of the devil, or that anyone else’s opinions about them mattered one lick.
It was challenging for my parents to have a child that was becoming so strong in these abilities. It meant that there was a fine line between encouraging me to use them and encouraging me to use them ethically. And when you have a gifted child, that child often will, as any child does, balk against boundaries that are being encouraged. That is where lessons in tact come in.
One of the most interesting lessons that I experienced in both tact and respect came from my father. Now, I have mentioned in previous writings that he and I did not have the best of relationships. He was, for the most part, quite abusive towards me. Why he was can be debated till the cows come home. I really do not care why. What I care about is that he never let me know that he ever cared that I existed. This left me with the impression that he actually preferred that I did not exist. Healing that wound took decades and I made damn sure I did not pass it on to my own children. Having said that, I have come to appreciate some of the things that he did get right, which was only possible once that wound was healed. This was one of the things he did right. So, one day when I was around nine years of age I was sitting drawing at the kitchen table. My father was also at the kitchen table drinking his afternoon tea before heading back out to the fields. My mother was working in the kitchen as she did every day. She was using a tea towel to dry some dishes and before she hung it up I casually thought, “That goes in the fridge.” I did not see that as “pushing thoughts” at the time. But she put the tea towel in the fridge. A minute later she went to grab the tea towel but could not see it anywhere. “Where did I put that tea towel?” she wondered out loud. I looked up and said, “In the fridge.” She opened the fridge and there it was. We both chuckled. My father saw this. He gave me a really strange look. A few minutes later I got up to get myself a glass of milk. That was back in the days when there were large square plastic holders that you could slide a 2ltr carton milk into so that pouring was easier with a handle. The milk in the holder was very nearly empty, so I emptied it, pulled the old carton out of the holder, and went to the fridge to get a new carton of milk. That is when things got hazy. I saw myself opening the carton of milk and pouring it into the holder instead of my glass. Milk went everywhere. I suddenly snapped out of it and said, “Oh my god! What am I doing?” My mom laughed and threw me the tea towel to mop up the milk. As I went to wring the milk out of the tea towel at the sink I glanced at my father, expecting him to fly into a rage over the spilt milk and start beating me again. Instead he had a smirk on his face and he said, “Now you can see that you are not the ONLY one who can do that shit. I suggest you don’t do that again.” That scared the crap out of me. Realizing that my father could mind control me by pushing thoughts into my head freaked me out. Realizing that this is what I had done to my mother also freaked me out. As frightening as that was, it was a valuable lesson in honoring people’s autonomy, which was extremely strange, considering who was teaching me this. My mother later told me that sometimes, in order to help a child with their developing gifts, a gifted parent also has to use their own gifts to demonstrate things so that the child learns. My thought to her was, “I would likely have accepted just a verbal warning to not do that again.” Her thought to me was, “But would you have accepted it had you not felt what it was like to be pushed?” Point made. I later found out that in my father’s family of origin pushing telepathically was something that many of his family members would do to have control over others. No wonder he was so hyper sensitive to that ability forming within me! Even though he was not the poster child for acknowledging boundaries, this was one that had been breached for him all his life growing up in his family of origin, so it was one that he learned extremely well.
As we learn our lessons in how to use and not use our abilities (as we are supposed to do, anthough many don’t bother with ethics whatsoever) those abilities will naturally grow, much like muscle grows as we exercise it. As it grows it also expands into other abilities that are available to use through that branch system on our tree. As we learn more about what we can do, jumping off of the starting point of our developing abilites, we find that there are vast amounts of abilites that we never thought possible. And so we go forth and explore even more, because that is the only thing that makes sense to do once we discover that magic lives here.