Robyn Fritz — Page 34 — Intuitive and Spiritual Consulting, Past Life Regression

Animal Communication: On Being Frankly at Home with Animals

December 14, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

Living with anyone, especially yourself, can be irritating. You have grand illusions about being saintly, or at least perfect, but reality doesn’t seem to work like that.

So you need a sense of humor, especially if you’re living with me. I’m lucky that my two Cavaliers, Murphy and Alki, and Grace the Cat know how to laugh.

I love my kids, my beautiful multi-species family. They are living reminders of what it takes to live the human-animal bond. They love me, or do a really good job of faking it. I appreciate that. Makes me feel good. Illusions and all that. (I mean, really, can all your foibles be loved all the time?)

Sometimes my kids irritate me. They’re not perfect and that can make me impatient. Or at least exasperated. When their bad habits annoy me, they simply annoy me, even though I stop to think that my bad habits annoy them.

Take my Cavalier boy, Alki. He’s slowed down a bit, but he still has a lot of energy—to chase and eat a stick, track gull poop right off the seawall, eat whatever he can as quickly as he can, roll in muck, bark at anything he feels like … and gulp water just before bedtime.

One night I stomped into the kitchen, yelling at him to quit drinking. He finally stopped.

I was annoyed, since this happens almost every night. They need water, but he can overdo it and barf it (I know, I know, don’t preach about this), and it’s just not thinking. (I know he can think, he proves it all day long. He’s also really good at just doing whatever he wants because he doesn’t think hard enough, one of his bad habits.)

So, I was yelling at him to stop. I grumbled, “You just can’t help yourself, can you? You do everything in excess.”

Alki paused to consider that as he walked away from the water bowl. “Well,” he said deliberately. “I don’t get enough to eat.”

I had to laugh. When you can talk with animals and other beings like I can, you’re privileged to hear exactly what they think, and follow the reasoning process. Alki heard me complain about his tendency to do things in excess, and he went right to the heart of the matter: his favorite thing is to eat, and he doesn’t get to eat in excess. Plus he was being cheerful and logical even while being scolded.

How many of us are like that with the humans in our lives? Or our animals?

I had to stop and marvel at the mind in this dog body. The magnificent dog who chose to be part of my family. Even with my faults. Who is more patient with me than I am with him, and is thus a living example of light and love.

Nope, my multi-species family isn’t perfect. Neither am I. The human-animal bond stretches to accommodate that, if we let it. If we listen, we can hear our family, whatever the species, remind us of that. It makes life worth it. And fun.

When a Ghost Isn’t a Ghost: Meeting Time Travelers, Part 2

December 9, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we learned about a haunted house in California, and talked through the situation with a client. In Part 2, what happened when we sat down to clear the house.

Clearing the House

To summarize, Jody had lived in her little house twice. This time she’d been bothered by increasing noises: thumping, pounding, footsteps, things dropping on the floor, all so loud that Jody had trouble sleeping. She was also seeing a ghost: a woman who appeared to be dressed like women in the ‘30s and ‘40s. The ghost had one thing on her mind: this was her house and Jody needed to get out of it. She kept saying it over and over.

Both times Jody cleared the house at my direction and asked her guides to keep the ghost out. Nothing worked for long and the situation was getting worse. When the ghost actually ran her hand down Jody’s arm, I insisted that she try clearing the house again, and that my crystal partner, Fallon, and I would do it with her.

It was now time to sit down and do some ghost busting to clear Jody’s old house in California. Fallon and I ran through the procedure together and gathered our own materials and were ready promptly at 6 p.m. We got Jody on the phone. She was ready with her salt and sage and surrounded by her crystals.

We started.

I called in everybody’s guides: hers, mine, the three Cavalier King Charles Spaniels she lives with. All the beings I work with, from my crystals and my crystal partner, Fallon, to Mount St. Helens, the dragon queen, Yellowstone, and so on. And the guides and protection for my multi-species family (my two Cavaliers and cat) and my home. Strong protection all around, which would keep us all safe and comfortable.

I then introduced myself to the house and to the ghost in the house, introduced Jody, and asked if the ghost would talk with us.

She promptly joined us.

By this time we had heard her name. Or Jody had. Her name was Martha.

When she first showed up, Martha was alarmed, insisting we were ghosts. She could also see a bright yellow light with us: that was my crystal partner, Fallon, but I didn’t mention that right then.

I was quiet and respectful.

“No, Martha, we aren’t ghosts,” I said. I told her that I was helping my friend with her house, the same house Martha insisted was hers.

“This isn’t your house any more, Martha. Would you like to discuss that with us?”

Jody was reporting what she was seeing and hearing. Martha was afraid. No kidding, hard to blame her. Ghosts were talking with her. I also felt her discomfort and confusion.

I focused on calming her down and keeping a quiet, loving presence in the work. After all, she didn’t know we were coming to talk with her. That had to be surprising.

I assured her that we were not ghosts. It also occurred to me that if she was Christian, she might be worrying about the devil. So I assured her we weren’t the devil. Or angels. Or bad guys of any kind. That we were human. Two human women, just like she was. Ordinary. Average.

She didn’t buy it.

I persisted. “We’re human. We’re just two women sitting down and having a conversation with you.”

She was quiet.

Now I was even more curious about Martha and her ghost status. Do ghosts think people are ghosts? I didn’t know, so I decided to start with the obvious.

“Martha,” I said quietly. “The date we were talking to you is July 22, 2011.”

“No it’s not,” she insisted. I know Jody had tried several times in the past months to tell her the date, and she had refused to hear it.

“Yes, Martha,” I said. “The date is July 22, 2011. I’m talking to you from Seattle, Washington. And Jody is talking to you from her house, which you say is your house, in California. You’re safe, Martha. You can talk with us.”

Both Jody and I noticed that Martha went quiet. I could feel her thinking about what we said. Or trying to think about it while dealing with astonishment.

“How can that be?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Scientists, people who study things, not even they know the answer. I just know we can talk with you. Two ordinary women living in the year 2011. Somehow we were able to jump time, so that we could go back in the past and talk with you. We’re in the future. We have much bigger cities now, and more people, but it’s still pretty much the same. Do you see that round yellow light?”

She did.

“That’s a crystal. He works with us. Maybe he’s making it possible.”

I gave her a bit to think.

“So, Martha, tell us what year it is where you are?”

I heard her say 1945. Jody heard 1947.

It was hard not to be excited about that. My goodness, we were talking to somebody in a different time period. My wild hunch was correct!

We chatted quietly. Jody and I both told her our birth dates. How we regretted that we’d never meet her in person. She relaxed enough during the conversation that she said she would have liked to meet us, to get to know us.

I was beginning to wonder how we were talking to somebody in the past.

Why had that even occurred to me, that we might not be dealing with the traditional ghost, whatever that is? Well, that was easy. Because I don’t know better, really. I think about things and I try not to be limited by what other people think. Sometimes that gets me in trouble (okay, a lot of times). Now it turned me and my friend into time travelers.

But why? Sure, Jody’s house was the link. Then again …

Why Were We Talking with a Time Traveler? Maybe It’s The Way Station for Dead Things on the Other Side

Oh, no. I had a bad feeling about why we were talking with her.

See, my family runs The Way Station for Dead Things on the Other Side. I laugh when I say it. I’m not the person I’d think of to usher people across the whatever it is to the place where dead people live. Where they recover and do whatever they do next. But it happened a few years ago, when I started working with animals who were dying and could suddenly see the place where they were going, and animals and people waving them over.

And the day when Jody and I watched two of our friends go over there: Ralph the Deer had recently died, and Jody and I were lucky enough to be intuitively connected to Raymond the Bear as he died, talking with him and encouraging him as his friend Ralph came back to snuggle next to him and then get up and walk with him into the woods—and out into a sunlight field where my dead dad greeted them with a shout of laughter: “Only my daughter would send a bear and deer!” Really. Honest. True.

Oh, yes, I live a strange life. But now I work with my dad and with my animal friends as animals and people transition. But that’s a longer story. The point is, I can call my dad, Ray, and Raymond and Ralph to greet and care for transitioning beings. Jody can, too.

I had a feeling that this is what was happening.

“Martha,” I said gently. “How old are you?”

“Eighty-two,” she said.

In the late 1940s. She was old. And alone so far as I could tell, as I didn’t see or sense another human with her.

“Are you dying?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said softly.

Damn. I briefly struggled with my conscience. Here was an opportunity to learn something about connecting with other people across time. I could apply my analytical brain to asking a lot of questions. By asking her when the war with Germany and Japan ended, and what conditions currently were, I could learn the exact date we were talking to her in her time. I could find out why she thought we were ghosts, learn how long she’d been seeing Jody in her house (how does time run in different time periods?), what she was seeing, who she was and what she did, if other people were around. We could experiment and refine time travel. We could blow the world’s collective mind, get rich, maybe even do some good somewhere, plus tweak a few scientists.

Yes, I could pester a dying woman in her last moments. Or I could get her support as she died.

I knew she was alone. Jody thought so, too.

So I told her that we would stay with her, talking with her, while she died. I also said I was sending her help: and I asked Raymond the Bear and Ralph the Deer to go be with her.

They promptly did. Jody heard the alarm just as I realized what a stupid move that was. Send a bear to a dying woman in the wilds of California? What was I thinking? She’d be terrified of bears, especially such a huge one (Raymond was super-sized in life).

Sure enough, she panicked at seeing Raymond, and not even Ralph the Deer could help that.

Thinking quickly, I asked them to back off and assured Martha I’d send some different help while I called for my dad.

“Dad,” I said urgently. “I need to go help this woman who’s dying in California.”

Like most dads, he was already paying attention to what I was doing. “You want me to time travel?” he asked.

Why do people argue with me when I’m trying to get something done on a deadline?

“Dad, you’re a dead guy. You are time traveling.”

“Oh,” he said, like that had just occurred to him. Honestly, what do dead people do all day that it takes a living one to point out the obvious?

Then he turned, walked forward a few steps, took a few steps sideways and down, and he was suddenly standing beside Martha in the house. She saw him and relaxed. (Which raises another question there isn’t an answer to: Martha got pretty darned comfortable real fast with the situation; while Jody and I both felt she was a cook at the mines, I was wondering what else she was. Maybe regular average people like Martha and me and Jody were quicker to accept what was in front of us than most scientists.)

Jody and I told her we were sorry we couldn’t meet her in real life. Neither of us had actually been born yet in her time. By this time she was relaxing with us. Maybe dying mellows you, I don’t know. She said she wished she could meet us and get to know us.

Jody said we could meet after we were dead. We’d have plenty of time to visit then. (No harps in our futures.)

I told Martha what I was concerned about.

“There can’t be any more communication between you and us,” I told her. “Or between your time and ours. I don’t think it’s safe. We don’t know enough about it. But if you’re seeing us in your time, and we look like ghosts to you, and you look like a ghost to us, that means the connection is the house and I’m concerned for it. It’s vibrating between times. That can’t be healthy or safe. We don’t want the house collapsing on Jody, who is living there now.”

Both Jody and Martha thought that was a good idea. I wondered about that. You hear of buildings suddenly collapsing for no good reason. Maybe they were involved in a time warp something like this one. One thing’s for sure: we don’t know. And we were out Star Treking the trekkies.

I said, “We’ll stay with you until you die, Martha. Then my dad and our animal friends will walk you safely to the other side. When you’re safe, my partner, that light you see? His name is Fallon. We’re going to seal the doorway between the time periods, so there will be no further conversations between us.”

Wow, I sounded like I actually knew what I was talking about. Funny thing, it still makes sense to me. Even though none of us know anything about time traveling.

A few minutes later, Martha died and my dad and Raymond and Ralph escorted her to the other side. Jody reported that Martha was still leery of Raymond the Bear, who was trying very hard not to have hurt feelings. My dad held Martha’s arm as they walked, and Ralph walked beside her. Raymond was on my dad’s other side, walking discreetly beside them all.

I told Fallon it was time to close the doorway between time periods. I watched as two big dark doors closed together, with a thin gold light between them. Fallon then moved from the top of the light to the bottom, and the door was sealed. Jody’s amethyst crystal cluster, James, then scurried up to the door, kissed it, and rejoined us.

And our time traveling was over.

It takes a lot to make me speechless, but that experience did, for a few seconds anyway. Then I thanked all our guides for joining us and ended the session.

I noticed that we were being watched. This happens a lot when I do my work, and I suspect it happens to other people. Nobody can mind their own business. One person I worked with telepathically showed up, smiling at me, and I smiled back. Someone else, someone powerful and curious about what we’d just done, started to look closely at Jody.

“No, you don’t,” I scolded him. “You leave her alone. Don’t go near her. You deal with us,” I said. He turned and regarded me and Fallon, and then left.

Then I yelled at Jody’s guides. “What the heck is wrong with you people? When she asked you to clear the ghost in her house, or make her feel safe, you did nothing. She’s stepping into her work now, and you have to pay attention.”

Here’s hoping they do.

What We Learned from Our Ghost Adventures

Personally I’ve never been fond of ghosts, ghost stories, horror stories, any of that. I don’t like being frightened. Plus not much of the hoopla ever made sense to me. The ghosts I’ve met in real life haven’t been as scary as some of the beings I’ve met who aren’t ghosts. Including humans.

I believe that the ghost stories we hear are often stupid stories dominated by suspicious, naive minds that have accepted the crap that comes down from our cultural and religious and government institutions. Over time we allowed these institutions to deliberately inflict fear on us to collapse our minds into fear-shrouded boxes they could control. If we can break through the boxes, maybe we can help bring the world back into balance.

I think perhaps our ancestors who were more attuned to our animate universe knew better about things we can’t normally see, whether they are ghosts or something else. They weren’t as susceptible to easy control of fear. They were living ‘outside the box.’ Maybe.

Clearly ghosts are real. But we’ve decided what they are without asking them. Sometimes they are dead people or other beings with agendas. Sometimes, as in the case of Martha, it’s obviously something else.

The difference in this case was that I did the ‘think outside the box’ bit. My habit is to be analytical and skeptical but open to possibilities. With a clear-minded approach, we can be open to the ‘What if’s’ that allow us to explore and discover new things, or re-discover old ones that we’ve lost touch with. Like what ghosts really are, and how we can learn about the mysteries of the universe simply by being open to the experience.

I’ll never know why we were able to connect with Martha. I know that houses are strongly connected to us, and that two women dearly love the little house that each insisted was theirs. Jody is digging into archives to see if we can find out something about the real Martha. All we really know is that, at the end of her life, she had a conversation with two women in the future, and because of that she died surrounded by new friends and was safely escorted to whatever it is beyond death, starting with my family’s Way Station for Dead Things on the Other Side. In the last few minutes of her life Martha let go of fear, became friends with two women in the future, and let kindness help her.

One part of me will always regret losing the opportunity to learn more about time traveling, even while I’ll always know that setting it aside to bring assistance to a dying woman was the best and most compassionate choice. There will be other opportunities. Better be.

What I do know is that preconceptions keep us from experiencing the world and the universe as it really is. We are afraid of ghosts, or we hunt them for TV shows. Certainly I’ve talked with shamans who build bridges of light to help souls move on. But there’s clearly more to death and dying that what we think of as ghosts.

How long was Martha seeing Jody in her house? We’ll never know. It could have been only a few hours in her last day of life, even though Jody was aware of her for over a year. Martha could have been actively trying to get rid of her, and maybe we saved Jody’s sanity, and possibly her life, by intervening.

Which makes me worry about ghosts. When we go out and ‘bust’ them, are we hurting a living person in a different time period? I hope not.

I know that my crystal partner, Fallon, played as big a role in this adventure as Jody and I did, as my dad and my animal friends did.

Did the House Get Clear?

After Martha left and the doorway between times was sealed, Jody went off to do the clearing of the house. She spread sea salt in all the rooms and outside, set out bowls of salt water to absorb residual vibrations, smudged the house and yard and herself and her dogs. I finished the clearing of my house and family as well. I also told Jody to take a bath in salt water and rest for the night. No TV. She objected to that (and mostly ignored me, it turns out), and I said, really, we’ve just done something scientists and adventurers dream about. And we don’t know the consequences. So rest up and make sure you’re healthy.

Yes, the house is clear. It immediately felt better, and the next day Jody sounded lighter and happier than she had in months. It has remained clear. Martha has not been back.

Jody and her house and her family are off on new adventures. Which is as it should be. I know Martha is, although I haven’t asked my dad about her. It just doesn’t seem necessary. My job is done.

I’m still wondering, though: what’s next for me and Fallon? I can hardly wait to talk to another time traveler. Well, okay, one besides me. And Jody. And Fallon.

But one thing I do know: it will be an adventure. We’re up for it.

When a Ghost Isn’t a Ghost: Meeting Time Travelers, Part 1

December 8, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

: Copyright (c) 2011 by Danny L. McMillin

Ghosts aren’t always ghosts.

Sometimes they are time travelers. Or we are because we’re talking with them. Or something.

Let me explain.

What I don’t know about ghosts could fill volumes.

What other people think they know about ghosts could fill even more.

So here’s what I know.

Working Between Dimensions and the Crystal Fallon

I clear houses and businesses for people. I cooperatively clear houses and businesses and land systems by creating a conversation between the space being cleared and the humans currently occupying it. Sometimes I clear out things that we call ghosts. Sometimes they’re not willing, but I talk to them about what’s going on and then it’s done. Respectfully. Honestly. As thoroughly as possible.

This process has taken on new dimensions (literally) since Fallon has come back into my life. A citrine Lemurian quartz sphere, Fallon is not a tool. He is my partner. We do intuitive consultations and clearings. A rare planetary and dimensional energy, Fallon has helped me deepen my work, so we’ve been places I didn’t know existed. (Those stories another time.) Point is, Fallon and I work together, and very often it’s the seat-of-my-pants intuitive-logical leap that gets things done. What I call “living outside the box,” or carving my own path instead of adhering to dogmatic lines.

So.

The Haunted House in California

My friend, Jody, lives in a tiny, old, uninsulated house, about 400 square feet, in a small town in northern California. She’s lived in that same house twice. The first time for about 11 months, from late 2006 to 2007. This time she’s been there since April 2010. For years this house was located near Walker Mine in Plumas County, but has been on the current land since sometime after 1948, when the mine was closed.

Jody is one of the best clairaudients I know. That means she can talk to things we wouldn’t ordinarily think to talk with, like animals (and snowflakes). After hanging around with me for awhile and being encouraged to ‘branch out,’ she’s also started talking with many of the same beings I talk with: the land, crystals, and so on. Like most of us she lacks self-confidence, but she has one big thing going for her: she’s willing to listen.

We talk almost every day, but I was slow to pick up on the story about the noises Jody was hearing in the house. She says now that the first time she lived there she heard a few noises, which she dismissed as the creakings of an old house. The second time the noises became louder and more frequent.

Then she saw the ghost. A woman. Over time, Jody saw her more clearly. She was wearing a dress that reminded Jody of pictures she’d seen of relatives back in the ‘30s or ‘40s. One time she even showed up with a man standing beside her.

Now Jody isn’t fond of this ability, but she sees dead people. Sometimes she sees them at other homes, and sometimes they show up at hers. She knows who they are because they make it clear. They have messages. Or sometimes they just hang out. (Yes, she’s seen them all her life but usually ignores them.)

I tell Jody, “So you see dead people, it could be worse, you could see dead murdered people and have to work with the police.”

Somehow that wasn’t comforting. When she insisted she didn’t want to see these things, and didn’t want to talk with dead people, I taught her how to shield herself and tell them “No.”

So that’s what she told the ghost in her house. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Didn’t work. The pounding on the wall continued. Crinkling like cellophane being crumpled. Footsteps across the floor, the sound changing as the ghost moved from carpet to linoleum. Things dropping. Thumping.

Jody would tell me about this and I’d tell her to tell the ghost to stop it. Learning to work with whatever shows up is part of developing your intuitive skills. Being a no-nonsense butt kicker can work, too.

Neither worked.

Being lazy as well as practical, I told Jody, “Well, just tell her to go away.”

Jody would get mad at me. “I’ve tried that! It doesn’t work. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Experiment,” I told her.

So when the ghost thumped and dropped things in the night, Jody would yell out, “Okay, that’s enough, I’m trying to sleep, stop it.” Usually that would work, for that particular night. Honest to goodness, the ghost was generally polite: looking for attention, satisfied to get it.

But still not happy about Jody. Because the ghost never said much, unlike Jody’s other spectral visitors. Didn’t have a message for a loved one. Just said, more than once, “Get out of my house.”

Hmm.

Then things changed. The ghost touched Jody. One night, Jody was lying in bed, and she felt a hand lightly brush down her arm.

Now, that’s just plain creepy.

What If a Ghost Isn’t a Ghost?

When I heard that the ghost had touched Jody something cold and dreaded hit my gut. I stayed calm and thought about it.

I’m happy to say many things show up around me but I’ve only been scared once (and then because I was being silly). I talk to a lot of things, from animals to homes and businesses and weather systems to things we don’t even know realio trulio exist, like dragons (thank you Ogden Nash and The Tale of Custard the Dragon). We talk about fun goofy cocktail party stuff and we talk about how to live together as equal beings on a conscious, evolving planet.

We talk about consequences.

It’s serious business. I take it seriously. And now I was wondering. Seriously.

If a ghost could actually touch Jody, what does that mean? Something awful occurred to me.

“Okay,” I said to Jody. “I’m not liking this. Why haven’t you put a stop to this ghost?”

Jody insisted she didn’t really mind the ghost. But she sounded more defensive than certain. Hmm again.

“I’d mind,” I said. “It’s creepy that there’s a ghost disrupting your house.”

Jody got mad at me. “There’s nothing I can do about it. So quit bringing it up.”

Okay, sometimes you have to let things go, especially when you’re training people to use their intuition, because they have to learn to be self-reliant and self-confident. However, there was the whole matter of touching Jody.

“Thing is, I’m not thinking that’s a good idea. You said the ghost touched you. You actually felt her hand running down your arm.”

“Yes,” Jody said. “That was weird.”

“And potentially dangerous,” I said. “We don’t know everything about the world. But think about it. She wants you out of her house, and keeps saying that. She’s now touching you and she’s a ghost. How far is that from losing her temper … and stabbing you with a knife?”

Jody freaked. Couldn’t blame her. I also couldn’t let it go. “Why do you think she could stab me?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Jody. But if she can touch you with her hand, why couldn’t she pick a knife up and stab you? It’s not like there’s a definitive guidebook on what ghosts can and can’t do. I’d hate to find out that was possible after it happened.”

Jody snorted. She gets impatient with my analytical, skeptical mind. My mom used to complain that I think too much. I’m pretty sure Jody would agree with her.

I said. “Really, what if she isn’t a ghost?”

“What?”

“Honestly, who knows what ghosts really are? All we know is that we can see some vague outline, or in this case, you see a woman. Now you’ve seen dead people before, relatives of people you knew who had messages for them. But this is different. What if she’s not a ghost?”

“Like what would she be?”

“Well, the connection is the house. Clearly you’re living there now and she thinks it’s her house. What if she’s seeing you and thinking you’re a ghost?”

Oh, now I was on a roll.

“We don’t know where she is actually living now. Back years ago the house was in a small rural area. What if she’s intuitive like us? What if she’s practicing some kind of magic and is trying to clear her house of you, thinking you’re a ghost? What if she’s really powerful, which she’d have to be to touch you because she’s not here in a living body? What if she’s hired somebody to clear out the ghost in her house, but that ghost is you? This could be extremely dangerous.”

Jody got quiet. Well, who wouldn’t?

“Here’s another thing,” I said. “You know Fallon and I astral travel, whatever, that we go between dimensions and visit other places. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who do that, we’re just probably the only ones who make up procedures as we go. Not always a good idea, but you know me.”

Jody chuckled.

“So, what if she isn’t a ghost but a time traveler?”

“What?”

“Jody, what if she is alive in another time period and she’s trying to get rid of the ghost she keeps seeing in her house?”

“Is that even possible?”

“Who really knows what’s possible?” I said. “But here’s another thing that bothers me. People who are energy workers and psychics and so on are always talking about ‘energy,’ but not really defining it. From working with other beings I’d say there is a different vibration to every being, which is why my guides explain why I don’t feel the vibrations of things like Mount St. Helens any more, because a volcano is just too big for a human to feel on that level.”

“Yes, we’ve talked about that,” Jody said.

“So here’s the thing. You’re living here in this time period and she’s thinking you’re a ghost in her house, so the connection is the house. So we know from my weird experiences that different dimensions exist, so why not different time periods? What if you’re both living in the house but in different times? And the house is vibrating in both time periods? That worries me. How long could anything hold up like that, especially an old house?”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Jody asked.

“Clear your house and get her out of there.”

“I don’t know how!” Jody yelled. “And I’m tired! The noises in the house are getting worse. And my guides aren’t helping. I asked them to keep her out and they don’t do it. And I tell her she’s dead and it’s time to move on and she won’t!”

Now, Jody had cleared her house twice following my directions, with sea salt and smudging and calling her guides to help. Both times were temporary fixes. Her guides were no help, well, that is just guides for you. Sometimes they’re not practical. Sometimes they’re waiting for us to take charge. Sometimes they just give up on you and quit, like mine did for awhile. So no telling what Jody’s guides were up to.

It didn’t matter too much, because I’d just deliberately backed her into a solution, spurred on by my crystal partner, Fallon.

“So Fallon and I will clear the house for you on the phone. You can work with us on your end.”

Jody agreed, sounding relieved.

“Good,” I said. “We’ll call you at six tomorrow night. Now go out and get sea salt, more sage, and be ready when I call.”

In Part 2: What happened next. Did we clear the house? Was it a ghost? What lessons do we carry forward?

How A Simple Thanks Will Pop Your Business

December 7, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

I just bought dishes from Crate & Barrel. It’s not the first time I’ve purchased from them. It sure has heck won’t be the last.

I like the value of their products. You can buy inexpensive home products or go nuts for their higher end stuff. I love their Classic Century Dinnerware, designed by a woman in 1952 (hey, it was a great year and still looks great). I regretfully settled for a cheaper design that fit my budget and my clumsiness factor.

I like their service. In the store, they are as attentive to an $8 purchase (listening to what I needed, and offering suggestions) as they were to my online order.

But there’s nothing like a really pleasant surprise to seal the deal.

They delivered the dishes to my door. Essential when you’re handicapped and can’t lift and carry. Sure, everyone will do that, and some of them for free (this was).

It was what was inside the box that surprised me. You couldn’t miss it. Sitting right in the middle of the box, so it was the first thing you spotted: a thank you card.

A thank you card. “Big thanks” it said.

As I stared at it, I felt a big grin take over my face.

I opened the card. It included a thanks for buying and simple directions on what to do if I needed anything else. And, of course, my shipping bill.

Wow, think of that. A few quick lines. A follow-up thank you email.

A customer for life.

I thank my clients, too. Not as elegantly, I discovered. But I will.

After all, when a huge company can personalize a transaction with a mass-produced thank you card, then one person in business can do it, too. This company has it down: distinctive graphics, good products, a personal touch.

I thank people in person who come to see me and my crystal partner, Fallon. I thank everyone for everything. But this little touch reminded me that we happily do business with people who pay attention to us. It’s the little things that build community.

Like thanking customers for their business with a simple yet elegant thank you card clearly tied to the brand.

Thanks for the lesson, Crate & Barrel.

I will be definitely be back.

So, when was the last time a business thanked you for shopping with them? And when did you last thank someone for shopping with you? Did it matter?

Tech Wizardry: At Last My Genes Don’t Matter

December 5, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

From my dad I inherited the ability to not understand mechanical things, so I can’t figure out how to get machines—and tools—to work.

From my mom I inherited the talent to sew a button on a shirt while sewing the shirt to my pants.

Mystification. Clumsiness. And left handed to boot!

Then I got an iPhone 4s.

And it didn’t matter.

No Jobs Are Menial: America Get to Work Already

November 30, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

Occupy this and protest that, but get to work already.

Now, are you going to scream at me or read this article?

It’s true, many people are unemployed, can’t get employed, and are suffering. Their children are suffering. Their animals.

Many people want to work. They find what they can and are proud to have a job, whatever it is.

I salute those people.

Many others are chronic complainers. They have no work ethic and don’t want one. They want to work, but stop when they make a buck or two. They live off unemployment because they can. They retire donkey years earlier than anyone else because they have a government pension (or worse, are proud that they are ‘double-dippers’).

You, fellow Americans, need to get back to work. Now.

I know very well about working, about wanting to work, about not being able to. I’ve been handicapped for 22 years. I couldn’t work for more than 15 of them, because of illness and physical limitations. So I worked on what I could: I polished my writing, I worked to get healthy, I created a healthy balanced life with animals, I lived community with my family and friends. I took care of my aging, ill parents.

I worked at health.

I wanted to go to a regular job and couldn’t. I also knew that no employer would have someone who’s handicapped like I am, because chronic illness is unpredictable.

So I created my own company. I quietly nurtured a loyal client base, helping people develop and publish their books. I taught writing. As I developed my intuitive abilities, I launched an intuitive consulting business. Now that’s what I do: I write true stories and I help people learn to tap their intuition. My partner is a crystal. His name is Fallon.

I’m working as best as I can.

I don’t quit. I won’t. I can’t. Why?

Because good work is part of life. It creates and nurtures life. It balances us.

The problem is, we Americans have forgotten what that means.

So I was intrigued by an article at msnbc.com contributed by Elizabeth Dwoskin at Bloomberg Businessweek. Crops are rotting in the fields, essential services are not getting done, because Americans call it ‘menial labor.’ They won’t work in the fields. They won’t clean homes and businesses. Well, look beyond your noses at this quote from Dwoskin’s article:

‘Massey says Americans didn’t turn away from the work merely because it was hard or because of the pay but because they had come to think of it as beneath them. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the job itself,” he says. In other countries, citizens refuse to take jobs that Americans compete for. In Europe, Massey says, “auto manufacturing is an immigrant job category. Whereas in the States, it’s a native category.”‘

Americans want to be managers. To them that means they tell other people what to do. They are inspired by personal coaches (I’ve not quite figured out what they are, but they are busy) who write golden futures for them that somehow lead them to classify work. No one wants to do the basics.

Well, I see it differently.

I grew up in a small Oregon town where the kids got up at the crack of dawn in the summer, climbed on buses, and went to pick crops so farmers could get that food to the cannery or grocer. Today, crops rot in the fields because no one will pick them.

Yes, my parents wouldn’t let us pick crops. Instead, my dad put me to work in his pharmacy/gift shop in the seventh grade. My dad had a habit of choosing shy, industrious teens to work in his store. He helped them become hardworking, honest citizens with a strong work ethic and the know-how to follow through.

I have an MBA from the University of Michigan, one of the top business schools in the country, but what I learned about good solid work came from my dad.

We need more dads like that right now. We need more people who are willing to work, and work hard, and do good work.

I’ve met some of them. Two of them clean my house for me, necessary because my body isn’t strong enough to do it myself. These two women are excellent examples of work ethic: they come in, they clean expertly, and they take pride in their work. They are also hilarious: they keep wanting to do more, because my standard of housekeeping isn’t up to theirs. Not once have they ever said anything I asked them to do was menial. They chose a business. They do a fabulous job. I admire them.

I do not get computers. I was simply too sick in the early years and now too busy to go back and figure them out. I have had a hard time finding people to work for me, to do computer work. One small business offered a simple website in two weeks, and three months later still had done nothing. Another badmouthed me to my face, not to mention other people, and refused to follow directions while complaining about ‘menial work.’ Fortunately, I now have a terrific website guy who keeps things running, never complains about his work, and is deservedly swamped. I continue to seek an able, supportive, genial assistant: asking around, I find many other people experiencing the same problem I have—people won’t work amd simply don’t know how to.

I have had other people ask to work for me, and when I call back to book their services, turns out they’ve just made a few bucks and they “don’t do that work.”

Menial labor again.

Well I talk with things. With homes, businesses, animals, chairs, cars, weather systems, whatever. I see the world from what I call an earth paradigm. I know we’re all in it together. All of us, no matter what it looks like. All life believes that. Except some humans.

I know that no work is menial. That word has no real meaning. Unless you’re mistakenly arrogant.

I have never in my life looked down on any work as beneath me. As not important or crucial for society. I am in awe of construction workers, and grocers, and farmers, and sometimes even physicists (for making livings making things up, and with math no less!).

I am grateful for the good honest work that so many people do.

And I am telling you, and everyone out there, that we don’t build an economy with people who won’t work. Who look down on doing whatever honest work there is to keep going. Who choose honest work and do it well.

Just quit complaining. Be glad you have a healthy body that can work. You can make any work mean something. And you can put food on America’s tables by picking those crops, keeping things clean, building things that work, and taking pride in making a contribution.

Because if you won’t, other people will. They aren’t Americans now. But they will be. Because they live what Americans should be living: productive lives.

They do the work. All work matters.

So?

Thanksgiving: What We Should Really Be Grateful For

November 21, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

I was thinking, what should I be grateful for this Thanksgiving? Then I saw this silly article, again, and I knew.

I’m grateful for common sense and for refusing fear.

This article, written by Joan Raymond and updated 1-25-11 at Pet Health on msnbc.com, suggests sleeping with our animals can give us diseases. Okay, it’s a good article. We have to take health seriously, including our multi-species family’s health. And we have to report on it responsibly, as Joan Raymond does. The article is not silly in the reporting but in the culture it reveals.

Reporters can’t comment on the facts or sense of their articles. That’s why they report: they give the facts and let us figure it out. We need straight objective reporting.

Those of us who comment on the straight objective reporting write about what it means to us. For me, it’s how can we re-connect people and the planet, from people to animals and the land and waters around us.

So, Raymond writes about the things that can get us if we sleep with or kiss our animals. Things like plague (from fleas), meningitis, round worms, and other horrific or just annoying things. Okay, first, really? Our animals should be healthy, just like us! They shouldn’t have these problems, so fix them already!

Here’s the problem with this reporting: it’s all filler material. No common sense. Just fear. You wade all the way through this article and find out that what they’re trying to scare us about never really happens.

People get hurt and killed in cars every day. You can sprain your ankle getting out of bed. You can choke on a cherry.

So do you avoid cars, getting up, or eating cherries?

No. You get smart. You say, no, I’m not going to be afraid of that. But I am going to be careful and pay attention.

So here’s what I’m paying attention to at Thanksgiving. Here’s what I’m grateful for:

I live in a country where we can disagree and still be safe, even though there are plenty of people who would like to change that.
A dear friend sent me a link to an inflammatory documentary on purebred dogs, thinking that my dogs being purebreds was the reason they had some health issues. She cared. It made me think about our assumptions, which I will address in future articles. Mainly: shelters and rescue organizations make a lot of money creating fear and prejudice, when they should be encouraging people to find their heart’s match in a dog or cat. Think, people, think! Talk to each other. Love. Be lucky that your friends care enough about you and your family to say something.
People who were users and not friends have left my life, providing openings for wonderful new adventures, wiser choices, and real friendships. Awesome!
Wonderful stores like East West Bookshop in Seattle and Vashon Intuitive Arts on Vashon Island have made me and my crystal partner, Fallon, welcome. We’ve met many wonderful people. And other venues are welcoming us.
My jade tree, Raymond, was dying, but community came together and saved him. A 200-pound houseplant given to me by my father is going into his fifth decade. Yes!
My great-grandparents had the vision to settle in North Dakota and pass a piece of it on to their descendants.
Finally, at long last, some smart medical practitioners have figured it out!
I’m grateful that my writing has touched lives, and that my book, Bridging Species: Thoughts and Tales About Our Lives with Dogs, was recognized with the prestigious Merial Human-Animal Bond Award.
My multi-species family is proof that the human-animal bond is alive and well and sleeping cozily together at night, 10 years now and counting!

This Thanksgiving we are grateful that we are all here, together, so we can write and talk about what makes sense, what doesn’t, and how we can create love from fear, starting with sleeping sensibly with our animals.

We celebrate Thanksgiving at our house: yes, that means the animals get to eat, too (and no, not stupidly).

We celebrate something everyday at our house, even if it’s just the joy of greeting each other in the morning and at night: in bed.

We celebrate birthdays. We celebrate the day each animal joined the family. We celebrate season changes, holidays, mistakes, triumphs, a good meal, a bad meal being over with, gas in the car, sun and rain, cozy flannel sheets on a winter’s night, friendship and family.

And we celebrate reporters who remind us that they’re sometimes stuck with silly assignments, and can still keep a straight face.

We celebrate Thanksgiving. We invite the whole world to celebrate with us.

(Not) Meowing for Mizuna: Exploring Greens with Dogs (and a Cat)

November 18, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

Cooking is a skill I apparently lost with menopause—and only miss when I’m hungry.

I used to be a great cook. When I say this to friends they always pause, clearly deciding between laughing at what they presumed to be a joke or at what I’d cook, which wouldn’t be. It doesn’t stop me from offering to cook for them. I watch their eyes widen in surprise, and I’m thoroughly delighted when they say something like they just want to spend time with me.

And show up with Thai food. This is called ‘everybody scores.’

I do cook. Just ask my dogs, Murphy and Alki. They think I’m a great cook and take food cues from me: as a team we have wide-ranging tastes and low standards. If it comes out of the fridge if must be good, or else why would it be in there? The cookie jar is a given. We’ll eat our veggies, but never stop hoping for brownies. Or anything with peanut butter.

That’s how I know the dogs and I are related.

Grace the Cat, I’m not so sure about. She’s so smug about being right about everything that she takes convincing. Plus she’s fastidious and skeptical. As it turns out, these are all qualities that I need to rely on, since my cooking skills headed south with my boobs.

I learned this accidentally at the weekly Farmers’ Market in West Seattle. Almost every week I load up on great foods, all the vegetables and fruits you could want, and then some. Problem is, I’ve discovered things I didn’t know existed, and most often can’t figure out how to cook. The farmers are kind and patient, but it’s clear they think I’m an idiot and are just too polite to say so.

Take, for example, pea shoots. I love pea shoots. I have no idea what they are, except pea shoots, but we love them at our house, all of us, even the cat. We’re even doing a video starring pea shoots. Now, the dogs always come running when I come through the door with food, but if I say, “Pea shoots!” then Grace the Cat leaps up from her normal out cold snooze and races to hold down the kitchen counter while supervising grocery unloading.

You hold up a pea shoot and she perks up, meowing. No obstacle is too great as she promptly hunts it down: grocery bags, stuff on the counter, nothing stops her. If I offer pea shoots to the dogs (who are politely waiting on the floor only because they can’t reach the counter), Grace the Cat backflips onto the floor and bulldozes right through them. You’d think that for her, a pea shoot is, well, the fashionable cat’s mouse.

So you can imagine my surprise the day I decided to cook that week’s bounty of pea shoots.

I yanked them out of the fridge with a dramatic flourish and waved them at Grace the Cat. “Pea shoots for dinner,” I announced, grinning at her.

She stared right through them at me. Unrelenting disapproval. Stern outright disbelief.

“What’s your problem?” I asked. “You love pea shoots!”

She didn’t move. Just glared. I stuck them under her nose. She continued to glare at me as she strategically moved her head back.

I looked at the pea shoots. “Well, they do look different this week.” Yes, kind of like an entire species different, but I wasn’t going to say that.

Grace the Cat looked at me like I was an idiot. She is no fool. She knows when something is a pea shoot. And when it is not. Still they had to be eaten.

I tried the dogs next. They examined the suspect pea shoots with long, strained faces and then looked at me like I’d done something embarrassing and disappointing to their tummies.

“Lot you know,” I sniffed. “I admit they look a little weird.” I hesitated, but I’m thrifty and I’d bought them so I’d eat them.

Unless I could pawn them off on the cat. I waved them at her again. Nope.

I cooked those suckers for two dinners. Both were miserable: the suspect pea shoots were lank, bitter, limp, and tough, like spinach gone off the deep end. I sighed and ate it. Both nights the dogs and cat completely avoided me. I thought about how they just didn’t like pea shoots anymore, and about how right they were. They’d known something about that batch that I didn’t.

That weekend at the Farmers’ Market I stopped at my favorite greens vendor. Spring, you know, time for good things.

I stared down at duplicates of the pea shoots I’d suffered through. “What is that stuff?” I asked. “I thought it was pea shoots.”

“Mizuna,” she said, patiently. I think she flinches when she see me coming, but she’s always nice, and I always buy. Not sure what, apparently.

“Mi what ah?” I asked.

“Mizuna. It’s a green.”

“Well, I know that,” I said. It was green. Now, how to ‘fess up with the least embarrassment. “Should you cook it?” I asked innocently.

Shocked, she said in a strained voice, “Oh, don’t do that. Cooking makes it limp. And bitter.”

I giggled. For once the bad food wasn’t my cooking. It was mi what ah. I knew I shouldn’t have cooked it, but I’m not much of a predator, and I just didn’t know if it would fight back harder if I tried to eat it raw.

“I noticed that,” I said. “I sort of accidentally cooked it.”

She was shocked, like nobody could be that dumb. She was also disappointed in me. Like Grace the Cat in her stoic cat way.

“Oh, you shouldn’t do that,” the farmer said.

Good words to hear before I’d suffered through two miserable dinners.

Thing is, I wouldn’t have had to hear them if I’d just paid attention to my kids. The dogs, that goofy cat, they knew.

So now I’m a reformed shopper at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market. The vendors tend to explain things to me as they’re putting them in my bag: this is pea shoots, this is spinach, whatever. People in line shake their heads and sigh. But at least I get home safely. With food we kind of know how to eat.

Food that gets vetted by Grace the Cat.

Which is why I’m sticking to things the cat likes. Pea sprouts (certified by the farmer). Meat. Blueberry muffins. Cheese doodles. Salad. Corn bread, even though mine is more skanky than home on the range.

Because I guess I hit menopause and I’m not so home on the range. But there’s this cool grass I grow on the deck for the kids. They love it, so it must be good. Don’t have to cook it. Cool.

The Not So Crazy Things We Do for Our Animals

November 7, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

Here I’d been thinking I was just a bit off. And, as usual, not regretting it a bit.

When I think about being a bit off, I understand that I’m more off than normal. At least that’s what some people tell me, because I’m making a living in partnership with a crystal ball (literally). I did, however, think that I might just be the only person out there who bought a home, and a car, for my animal family.

Thanks to Yvonne DiVita over at BlogPaws I discovered a funky website called Daily Infographic. Where I discovered, in “20 Facts about Pet Ownership,” that I am in the minority but not all alone out there, doing whatever makes sense for my multi-species family.

See Item 7: “16% of dog owners and 14% of cat owners say they bought a home or a car with a pet in mind.” That includes me.

Even back when I didn’t have an animal family.

Back in 1998 I decided I wanted a dog again in my life, after grieving for my beloved English Cocker, Maggie, for 12 years. My landlord wouldn’t allow pets, so I bought a condo. A few months later an irrepressible, goofy Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Murphy Brown, came home to live with me.

Thirteen years later we’re both still here, aging together. We’ve been joined by another Cavalier, my goofy boy, Alki, and Grace the Cat.

The condo wasn’t the only thing I bought. By the time Grace the Cat came along 8 years ago it was clear we had car issues. The fancy Audi I’d bought to drive long distances to visit my nephews was impractical. I needed a family car: something easy to get into and out of with two dogs and a cat in tow.

The Audi went and a Toyota Matrix came. It’s a whole lot easier to get around in. Especially with the animals in tow.

And the condo? I love our condo. My multi-species family loves it. I planned for it to be a place where kids and dogs could come and go while enjoying the beach in our salty, sandy Seattle beach neighborhood. It worked really well for that. What I didn’t count on was the most obvious of all—my animals would age.

The human-animal bond is a strange and wonderful thing. Trying to live a thoughtful life is tough enough alone. Adding animals to the mix can be devastating. I wouldn’t trade it for a life without them, but I can’t sugarcoat it.

That’s where we’ve become our own strange statistic. Not surprising, really, considering the things we’ve shared, from past lives to a cherry addiction.

And a new, tough thing. Murphy and I share a gruesome arthritis: our futures our written in our spines.

It means we need a home where we don’t have stairs. I can do them okay for now, but it’s hard to carry things. Like groceries and handicapped dogs. As I watch Murphy gamely do the stairs, and Alki begin to hurt as well, I see time running out.

It means we’ll have to leave the home I bought for us to live in.

I love our home. My work means that I talk with all life. Our home, Frank, is a real living being, an active presence in our lives and our work. But we’ll have to leave him behind.

People say: “Really? You’d give up your home for a 13-year-old dog?”

To which I say, “Well, wouldn’t you?”

My Mom Wore Tweety Socks: Why I Care

November 4, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

My mom wore Tweety socks. She thought they were hilarious. She’d sit in her chair and raise her feet in the air, wiggling them at the world. Giggling.

Made me laugh, too.

Annoyed my brother. In fact, he was offended and objected to her wearing Tweety socks. They weren’t age appropriate.

Really? What is age appropriate? Braids? Beards? Hats in church? Cleavage? Shorts?

What’s traditional?

I asked my brother why he was so irate about the socks. Mom was a grandmother, too old for Tweety socks.

My mom was 68.

She had a collection of strange socks. She also had red hair (acquired when she was six months pregnant with me and bored) and expensive tastes, running to Ferragamo shoes, fast cars, and … Tweety socks.

When she died, at 68, I wanted certain things to remember her by, that had sentimental value, that made me smile. I took her socks. Even though I’ve since cleaned out many of the things I got from her, I kept her Tweety socks.

I found them in my drawer last week. They made me smile.

Truth is, my mom and I didn’t always get along. It wasn’t just the normal mother-daughter thing.

It was cultural.

My mom was adamant that women were inferior to men. She’d shake her finger in my face and yell it at me. Her insistence that neither of us were as good as a man because we were women still shocks me.

It wasn’t intellect. Or job. Or honesty or responsibility or respectability. It was being female. God and society told her so. That made it true.

I rebelled against that from Day 1. They slapped me in uniforms in Catholic school, and I stuck gaudy jewelry on them and hiked the skirts up. They insisted on hats in church and I wore a used handkerchief. I was a brat when I wasn’t giving in. I rebelled.

And I’m still rebelling. But that’s a topic for another day, the one that goes on about things like young women who claim they’re not feminists and take their husbands’ name when they get married. Excuse me: call yourselves whatever you want, except by your husbands’ name: culturally, intellectually, emotionally, that means you accept that you are inferior. So do men, other women, and society. Our children.

Until that changes, nothing changes, and society, and culture, remain stifled. If you act inferior, you will be. Just like my mother said.

But back to the Tweety socks.

One day years ago I was walking through Nordstrom’s when I spotted a sweatshirt sequined with a winning poker hand. Not only was my mom a poker player (a regular winner at the local tavern), but she loved those sequined sweatshirts. I always thought they were gaudy, but she liked them, and that’s still how I remember her, wearing those gaudy sweatshirts. That day at Nordstrom’s I bought the sequined horror. The excited clerk giftwrapped it and prepared it for shipping while I tucked in a note that said, “I love you, mom.”

Mom was shocked when she got it. I guess she thought I was prepping her for something horrible, like a disease or a new husband. I’m not one for giving spontaneous presents, and especially not expensive ones. But every once in awhile you get to tell your mom that you love her as weirdly as you can. That was all.

I saw her wear it once. For me. She was clearly uncomfortable. I had to chuckle at that: I never liked the clothes she bought me, either. She’d buy things that were way not me and pink: the only pink in my house is a laundry accident (well, okay, I have two cross-dressing flamingos).

My mom was smart enough to buy things just to annoy me, but only one thing ever did (for long): her hatred of equality.

I don’t live in an unequal world, because inequality isn’t the way it really is. I know. I talk with things: with animals, with our businesses and homes, with land and weather systems. I talk with them as equals, and they talk back as equals. There are masculine and feminine presences, and none of them are worth more than the others.

Think about that. A world where everything is alive and we are all equal. Think of what we could create! Think of what our children could be.

Last week when I found mom’s Tweety socks again, I thought about her, how the socks outraged my brother, and made me and our mom laugh.

I thought about her beliefs.

And her attitude.

My mother was a product of her times. She did what they told her, believed what they insisted, never achieved what she could have, not just in a career but in her life. She was always sad.

She also sold the house out from under my dad one day when he was working.

She played poker at night at a local tavern.

And she wore whatever she wanted. Right down to her Tweety socks.

Honestly, my mom was a rebel, in her own way. Not brave enough to stand up for the big things, but aware of the differences. I like to think her ugly duckling daughter’s rebellious spirit rubbed off on her.

Or I inherited hers, and am just running with it.

I wonder if rebelling is what mom was doing with the Tweety socks. Why she refused to get rid of them. I wonder if that’s part of the reason why I kept them.

Protest with humor.

Nevertheless, no one ever saw her Tweety socks except the family. They were covered up in public.

Her socks were in the closet.

No one, and nothing, should be. Not even our Tweety socks.

That’s why I kept them. That’s why I care.

Here’s to mom. And equality.