VOLUME: III
ISSUE: I

Hello Everyone,

I hope you’re all having an absolutely wonderful summer. I’ve been having a great time. Between swimming, watching the grandchildren, spending time with family and writing, I’ve been very busy. Summer is the season I love the best and fortunately, so does my body. You know how it is when you get older. All those aches and pains seem to hit hardest in the spring and fall, when the weather tends to be damp and cool.

Any of you out there watch Big Brother? I’m really enjoying the many twists and turns this year. I’ve even got a group going for it on Gather.com. Come and join the fun or just sign up to share your writer and/or the work of others at:

http://www.teeka1234.gather.com

As you know, my new book “Playing With the Devil” is now available. If you don’t have your copy yet, but would like to, just go to:

http://www.sagabooks.net

You can also find out more about it at: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/pwtd

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This month’s story focuses on an amazing woman from Iowa City, Iowa. Gretchen Little is a certified teacher of Reiki (Usui) I, Reiki (Kundalini) I, II and III, as well as Healing Touch (Level I). She is also an artist, with a Bachelor of Arts, a medical transcriptionist, musician, intuitive and channeler. Wow! That’s quite a combination of talents, if you ask me.
Gretchen says her intuitive gifts in particular began during and after a series of dramatic life experiences. While she has gifts in a number of areas, she’s still trying to figure out just exactly what she wishes to focus on as a career. Here is her story in her own words:

Spiritual World Explodes With New
Abilities For Self-Professed ‘Dreamer”

The year I turned 40 (2001) turned out to be very stressful for me at the soul level. Nothing had really gone as I intended in my life and suddenly, it felt like time was running out. I had a clerical job that I’d been in for a decade and I had been on a quest to be creative for a living my entire life. The depression levels were getting pretty high, so I maxed out my last credit card to take a fancy career/personality test. It came back telling me I was a “Dreamer.” I was hoping for a nice logical career to be spit out from the test, but I felt like I was back at square one. How was I going to make a living as a dreamer?
I should interject here that part of me was thrilled that I was a “dreamer.” I’d been one of those kids (an only child) who spent her childhood in her daydreams and books. And I’d been reading as much as I could about shamanism and spirituality for the 10 years prior to this test, so being a dreamer made complete and total sense to me. It’s just that it seemed to be the thing I kept trying to overcome, so I could have and do the things other “normal” adults did, rather than being chronically frustrated with my life.
Then in a combination of frustration and elation, I said to the universe, “Fine. I’ll just be a dreamer then. I’ll write romances for myself when I’m not working and I’ll just live in them in my head while I am working.”
(I had a transcription job that let me do that.) That’s what I’d done when I was 14 and I was very happy during that time. I vowed to regress. I started writing and my dark night of the soul brightened as I went deeper into the stories, which were getting sexier than I’d ever dared write before. And then my intuition blew open.
The details of what happened over the next few months are too long to recount here, but as best I can tell for now is that my Kundalini energy roared open and that put me in an altered state for about three months. I never fully lost contact with reality, but I had a definite sense of being in two places at once. I still do to some extent, but it’s much less dramatic now and I have much more control over it. I had read enough about shamanism to know that this is not unusual – for medicine men and women at least.
Therefore, I was able to keep my sanity because I had a sense that if I just held on, it would be all right in the end. I did end up quitting my job in the middle of it, not knowing that it would take me more than a few months to pull something else together for a career. I had a lot of fear to overcome first.
During this time, I first started to feel presences. The Goddess Brigid was the first. I was sitting at work doing transcription as always and suddenly I felt this huge presence over my monitor. I heard the word Brigid in my mind. I looked her up online and it all made sense to me. She has been a patron of mine ever since.
Another one was Shiva. I’d never, ever had an interest in India or Indian culture. In fact, it had always kind of repulsed me. But when Shiva showed up, much like Brigid, he opened my heart and filled me up with unconditional love. After that, it was like an entirely forgotten part of my soul finally got to live - the sensual woman inside of me.
Archangels Michael and Raphael also came during that time. When I “sense” or “get” people or beings, etc., it feels to me like I’m wearing a full body costume of them around me. I especially feel their face over mine. Let me tell you – the first few times Archangel Michael came to me, before we were fully attuned, he was really “heavy,” as though he was wearing armor as he is often depicted to be. And Raphael – well, I literally fell in love with Raphael. There was a lot of confusion about who was what during that time and I thought Raphael was my soul mate. It’s really mind blowing when you feel love like that for the first time.
I also started to “know” things about people and I started to channel, something I’d always been skeptical about, although fascinated by. Channeling had been the corner of New Age spirituality that I had mostly dismissed, as a matter of fact. And now I do it, although I haven’t developed it in the same way other, more famous channelers have.
Those are just the high points of my experience and my guidance is telling me that somebody reading this needs to know. I rely almost exclusively on my intuition now. I’ve spent probably thousands of hours by now in the intuitive zone and the only time it fails me is when my ego or my fear - especially my fear - gets in the way. It is all utterly fascinating to me, which is why I kept going deeper even when I was terrified. I just knew it was something I had to do. I was on a kind of hero’s journey into the Otherworld.
So what am I doing now?
A couple of years ago, an artist friend and I had been out taking Latin dancing lessons and were all fired up afterwards, so we decided to try and draw portraits of each other. (I think there’s a lesson in there that if you want to open your intuition - dance!) While I was drawing her, I felt the urge to keep sketching until her face changed ever so slightly under my pencil.
Since I’m a full body intuitive, when I get even the slightest impulse to do something, I listen. Especially when doing something creative. After that, her face kept changing and I had a “knowing” that the reason I’d never been able to draw people exactly how they looked was that I am too naturally intuitive. I was drawing them, and their higher self and their guides, etc. It’s like some part of me sees several transparencies laid on top of each other, rather than the physical person in front of me. Since I’m mainly clairsentient, it comes out through my drawing rather than being something I see through my physical eyes.
After that, I did a series of intuitive portraits to further explore this. (See www.ryze.com/GretchenIowa and www.squidoo.com/intuitiveportraits for more information.) I recently taught a very successful two-hour workshop in which I shared my technique with the participants and got them started doing their own drawings. I am not sure where I’m going with this at this time. Many intuitive artists have a set “style” and I don’t… I let the spirit guides draw themselves and not all of them have the same artistic talents. Some look very childlike and others are more well defined. If you are interested in having a portrait done, however, e-mail me at sensiblis@yahoo.com with “intuitive portrait” in the subject and we’ll see what kind of arrangements can be made.
I have also been doing general intuitive readings. I become the voice for your spirit guides, angels, etc. And sometimes friends or relatives who have passed on come through. I have to confess that I’m not sure what I believe about that. I didn’t go looking to become that kind of medium. It just happened one day. Sometimes I think I’m just reading people’s memory, although there seems to be a higher purpose to it that has to do with healing for the person I’m reading for. I’m always the skeptic while I’m doing it, but the other person seems to get a lot out of the experience.
For me, it’s like I’m in a room in my head – the “green room,” like in a theater – and there are people waiting to have a chance to speak. My body becomes the microphone, but I’m right there next to it, fully present. I am always filled with unconditional love when I do this, like I’m with old friends. I don’t hear what’s going to be said until I say it or right before.
There does seem to be a five second lag now, where there wasn’t in the beginning. (All of the guides, angels, masters, etc. have a tremendous sense of humor and love to weave pop culture into their communications.) I have the problem of getting too much information and not all of it is important for the person to hear at the time, so I’m learning to edit as I go, without thinking too far in advance.
I’m getting around to fine tuning my channels and offering specialized readings, but in the meantime I will just do generalized readings. I’ve done them for $1, I’ve done them for $1 a minute, so if you’re interested in having one, either by e-mail or phone, e-mail me at sensiblis@yahoo.com with “reading” in the subject and we’ll discuss what terms work for you. Bartering works as well.
I also do some energy healing and a kind of guided visualization/journey I invented – well, my guides invented. E-mail me at the address above for more detailed information about that.

Well, I think I just might take her up on a few of those offers!

NEWS:

1) I’m sure most of you have had the problem at one time or other that you’ve just got too much “stuff” on you computer and as the memory fills up, the slower it works. This can be a real problem, but fortunately, there is a solution. There’s a place on line where you can store all those file and pictures for free called File Lodge. Just go here: http://www.filelodge.com/refer.php?referrer=teeka1234
2) My course entitled, So You Want To Be An Author is still available through The TeleConnection. In this course, you will not only learn the basics such as time management, writing styles, proper writing techniques, how to prepare a manuscript, query letter or proposal and the do’s, how to overcome writer’s block and don’ts that every writer needs to know. You will also receive an amazing amount of information on how to promote and market both yourself and your book. To sign up, just go to: http://www.theteleconnection.com
3) And if you have expertise in a particular area that you think you could teach, please visit: http://theteleconnection.com/ref?MJ
4) I almost forgot to mention a one-hour interview I had on The X-Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell to talk about my new book Playing With The Devil. If you’d like to hear it, you will find it archived on the site at: http://www.xzone-radio.com/archives


MY OTHER WEBSITES:
http://www.ryze.com/go/teeka1234
http://freewebs.com/paranormalbooks
http://www.authorsden.com/paranormal

MY BLOGS:
http://revelationbringsinsights.blogspot.com
http://talkingtomyangel.blogspot.com
http://createyourownworld.blogspot.com

INTERESTING SITES:
In the mood for some humor? http://www.holylemon.com
Paranormal Internet Radio: http://www.coasttocoastam.com
And: http://www.xzone-radio.com
For some interesting and bizarre news, go to: http://scripts.gophercentral.com/pdf/bizarre.pdf
Interested in UFOs?: http://groups.msn.com/TheJamesFiles
How about ghosts and other things unexplained?:
http://www.melodief.com/ghosts/ghosts.html
Want to make your own banners?: http://www.abcbanners.com/cgi-bin/b2/b2.pl?action=AddText

Well, that’s it for this month everyone. Until next time, remember:
“Life is a gift: enjoy the present!”

All the Best,
Martha