The 9/11 Time Anchor by Tina Erwin

There are those shattering moments in life that define time and space. We all have them. These moments anchor our memory at certain points in our lives. We connect memories to them like pearls on a necklace. The energy of those moments may affect us indirectly and yet directly because after each of them, we are never the same. We change because the world around us changed.

I was in 8^th grade English class in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot. I remember that the PA (public address) system came on and they interrupted class and made the announcement. I remember Walter Cronkite’s voice cracking as he pronounced the fate of the Kennedy family, the changing course of a nation and the reality that our illusion of living in a safe world was forever shattered.

On January 28, 1986, I was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. I was home with the flu that day. I was resting when the news came on that Challenger blew up. I could not fathom such a disaster in the macrocosm being witnessed by the world and in the microcosm being witnessed by all of the astronaut’s families. My husband was Captain of a Submarine Rescue Ship that could perform salvage operations. He volunteered to immediately begin search operations with his ship. His ship USS Kittiwake, (ASR 13), eventually recovered that damaged ‘O’ ring that physically caused the accident. Looking back, I find it so strange to be connected to this event in its aftermath. Yet, in a thousand subtle ways, we are all connected.

I was sound asleep on September 11, 2001, when my sister called me from Virginia Beach. California is three hours behind the East Coast, so she was sure I would be asleep. Her frantic voice penetrated my sleep as I listened to the horror in her words. I rushed downstairs and turned on TV. My husband was at sea. I started calling my friends and neighbors. My friend Karen Ward came over and together we watched our world change again, and again, as each new piece of information came hurtling to us that not just the twin towers were hit, but the Pentagon as well and possibly the White House was next. There was a fear that one of the planes was headed to the West Coast to crash into some big building in Los Angeles.

Karen and I watched all the channels on television for most of that day. It was as if our world came to a halt. I will always be grateful that Karen shared that moment with me, that neither of us was alone watching this. The companionship of a wonderful friend or family member, helps to mitigate the initial trauma of any powerful event.

When any of us watch real life horror, we suffer trauma, to greater and lesser degrees, depending on who we are, where we are in relation to the event and how we approach life. Bad things happen to good people. The indelible memory is forever etched in our brain as well as the date, time and place of a national trauma. This becomes a time anchor. We will remember other events in our lives in relation to that time anchor.

Perhaps one of the hardest things about national traumatic events is the blunt reality that we are never really going to know for sure what actually happened that day, whether it was ‘that day’ in 1963, 1986 or 2001. If we are wise, we reserve judgment for the whole story is seldom what we think it was. Unlike the Tsunami of Dec 26, 2004, where we do know the cause was an undersea earthquake, the other events are man made. Maybe that is the hardest part. Natural disasters as bad as they may be are part of the ‘act of God’ scenario that we know we have to accept. But when one person deliberately harms another or is negligent then there is a huge sense of injustice.

In the end, the only way to balance the illogic of injustice is to remember that karma balances everything, whether we can perceive it or not. So today, the time and place anchor that is 9/11 will remind us where we were, who we were with and how we felt when our world stood still.

KS&L Chapter 406 Pick a Card, Any Card by Tina Erwin

       That’s what the card sharks say when they want to prove how clever they are, how stupid they make you feel and how desperately they want to make you believe in their crafty skill. Then they proceed to ‘guess’ what card you took.

       What’s the harm, it’s just a trick – right? Yes, it is just a trick, a slight of hand and for the most part pretty harmless. However, there are other types of card games, other types of card tricks that are not so harmless, not so simple.

       These other types of cards are even more magic: they can predict the future! Either you pick the card, or the card reader ‘picks a card for you.’ Then the reader proceeds to tell you your future or your fortune. Perhaps this person does a ‘reading.’

       They call these folks ‘fortune tellers,’ and they do not all use crystal balls, most of them use cards. These individuals consider themselves psychic and claim that they can use their psychic skills to tell your future.

       But we each have many unique futures to choose from, many paths to follow. Any fortuneteller will only see one or two possible futures that are apparent at that precise moment in time. That’s it. Nothing more. It also doesn’t mean that the future the ‘seer’ actually sees is going to happen. You have free will and you can choose a different path.

       Also, no future seer can see all the facets of your future, the factors in mitigation, the themes and variations that make any person’s life the complicated hand-made quilt that defines each of us. Many patterns shape us; many stiches of various colors of thread help us to construct our lives. We are not just one color on the quilt. We are all the colors, the swatches of fabric representing each experience that create the elegant definition of what creates the dynamic of a soul.

       And no fortuneteller can see our past lives and the influence those previous life experiences have on us. No one can see the batting inside the quilt, that gives it shape and dimension and no one can see the mosaic of the lives previously lived that help us to be who we are. We have those experiences for a reason.

       The cards I am referring to are Tarot or Runes cards, the ostensible tools of the garden-variety psychic.

       But what if the these cards, are actually the puppeteers and not the tools?

       What if the psychic is the tool and the cards are the vehicle for a much more powerful magician on another realm?

       What if this magician uses the ego of the mortal Tarot card reader to manipulate that person and then use his or her energy – and the energy of all of his or her fortune-seeking clients? Here’s how it works.

       The Tarot or Runes reader asks her ‘client’ to shuffle the deck, cut the deck and shuffle it again – so that the client’s energy goes into the cards. Then the client hands the deck back to the Tarot reader. The reader then lays out the cards in a specific pattern and ‘reads’ the signs and symbols in the cards to determine the future of the client. [Bet that card reader never cleans or clears those cards. . . . imagine the sheer volume of negative energy that those cards hold. . . . shudder.]

       Other Tarot/Runes readers work with clients over the phone or on the radio, on air, and ‘pull a card’ or ‘work with their runes’ to get a sense of the client and then ‘do a reading.’

       The Tarot reader believes that ‘spirit’ is providing the information and that when the client shuffles the cards that the client is also connecting to that same spirit which is how the Tarot reader can ‘see’ the person’s future. This is also true of the psychic doing the reading over the phone and pulling a card or a rune. Pretty clever! However, no one ever asks whom this spirit really is, what the intention is and if the connection with that other dimensional spirit is fully severed.

       Many a thrill seeking client has found him or herself hooked on psychics. That clever magician or spirit on the other side is laughing all the way to the energetic bank while the hapless client spends many thousands of dollars representing loss of energy, on the psychic.

       No, you would think that with this clever plan, the psychic would be rich, but none of them are wealthy because that ‘spirit’ on the other side is in reality, also bleeding the Tarot reader energetically dry as well. No one wins here except the immortal black magician.

       Those true Lightworkers who seek to help people do so without the use of Tarot/Rune cards. They do so by connecting to God, not some unidentified spirit. These souls connect with their own Higher Selves and access God. They do not need or use any form of divination.

       That means, that they do not use Runes, Angel Cards or any form of Tarot card that would even hint at divination. It also means that they do not use even inspirational cards.

       Want inspiration? Go outside, listen to nature, send prayers and healing to the world. You do not need a stack of specially cut thickened pieces of stiff paper with funny symbols on them to connect to God.

       No one requires an intermediary or a symbolic tool to speak to the Divine. No one needs a specific building of wood and stone to speak to God. God is there, without cards, without runes, without any form of divination.

       The more each person connects with God directly the emotionally stronger, the spiritually wealthier, and the happier he or she can be for the rest of this and all future lives.

KS&L 405 Compassion Fatigue by Tina Erwin

       A bridges collapse, trains collide, planes crash, there is an earthquake, a tidal wave, a hurricane, a bus crash, a person goes crazy and kills many people and the list of calamities continues. Then there are friends and family members who develop cancer, a terrible illness, a debilitating fall, a car accident, someone’s child has leukemia. People are dying in a war somewhere. 22 military people commit suicide a day.

       It is difficult to remember a time in history when there have been so many constant demands on our compassionate hearts. How can we hope to offer constant solace, endless care and the volume of prayers required to send help to all who so desperately need it?

       I know I am not alone in feeling the emotional and spiritual weight of so much tremendous need.

       At some point, it becomes important to recognize that conceivably the best you can do is to send healing to the world every day.

       Many people do something as simple as say The Lord’s Prayer and send the wonderful energy of this prayer to the whole world, to all of nature for the benefit of everyone and everything. Perhaps it is the energy of these and other powerful prayers that keep most of going day to day.

       We do not have to know all the people we are praying for nor do we know whom to thank for the prayers that benefit each of us. Suffice it to say that without prayer we would probably descend into barbarism.

       If you make a practice, a spiritual practice of sending whatever modest prayers you can say and send them to the entire world, and then let go you can do tremendous service.    Perhaps that is the best that any of us can do in a world of often staggering grief. We are often left in disbelief at the sadly carved paths that occur daily into the emotion soul for so many people. Conceivably prayers are the way stations along the way for all of us so that this journey of healing isn’t so difficult.

       This isn’t a very glamorous plan is it, saying a prayer every day? It feels like you’re trying to empty the Pacific with a teaspoon doesn’t it? But what if we all try this? What if we all do this, every single day, 365 days a year?

       Maybe, just maybe, we can change the world.