Intuitive and Spiritual Consulting, Past Life Regression

Space Clearing, Mediumship, Animal Communication, Personal and Business Intuition, Soul Clearing, Past Life Regression

The Other Fritzes

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My version of the Fritz family is complete with two dogs and a cat (and Fallon, and …). My brother’s version has a Jack Russell terrier, Skittles, and three fantastic humans I am proud and honored to call family. Here’s Ron and Jan with Justin, graduating from the University of Oregon in 2010, and Randall cheering him on. I never thought I’d be old enough to ‘remember when,’ but I do recall the boys as babies, and how impatiently I waited until they were old enough to go on adventures. Then, somehow, they were doing wheelies in my car in a parking lot! I am proud of their vitality and enthusiasm, their humor and kindness, their hard work and commitment to community. Our future is in good hands when they belong to young people like my nephews. Carry on, boys!

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Daily Rituals with Our Animals: Saving the World One Family at a Time

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We start and end the day at our house the same way: in a big pile on the bed while I tell my kids, one by one, with many hugs, how much I love them. And why. Every day. Every night. And I get lots of hugs and kisses in return.

What astounds me is that this astounds other people, who say they don’t even do this with their human families, let alone their animals.

Let alone their animals?

No daily rituals?

I have the world’s best family. They are two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Murphy and Alki, and Grace the Cat. I am the only human here (honestly, I can’t imagine a man I could put up with for 20 minutes who could put up with me for 10). I have extended family and friends I cherish, but the day-to-day life at our house comes down to us (and my crystal partner, Fallon, and the rest of the Alchemy West Committee, but I digress).

In the morning, when we’re finally awake, I roll over on my back and call my kids. We start with the eldest and work down. Murphy flops down beside me, her face snuggled into my neck, while I gently massage her back, and rub her ears, which makes her grunt appreciatively. When she’s ready, she gets up and Alki takes her place.

Alki, my tricolor Cavalier, snuggles up, but what he really likes is a neck and chest rub. As quickly as he deems appropriate he will sit up, turn sideways so his butt is planted at my hip, tuck his front paws to his chest, and flop over backwards across my abdomen (where my bladder also resides). Somehow he’s always perfectly aligned, so I don’t even have to move my arm, just scratch.

Grace the Cat comes when she feels like it, but not until she’s sure I’m awake. She likes to peer close and lick my nose, or squeeze between the blanket and comforter, which pads her in case I fall asleep and accidentally roll on her (not pleasant for either of us). She loves to be petted and praised.

I make sure I tell each of them how much I love them, how great the morning is, and what we have planned for the day. Then it’s up and at ‘em.

At night everyone gets a treat before our evening gathering. Then Murphy cuddles in my lap while I pet her and tell her how much I adore her, how happy I am that we’re together, how she’s the best girl dog in the universe, and we review the day and tomorrow’s plans.

Alki’s turn is usually a deep massage, which he loves. Everything else is the same, except he’s the best boy dog in the universe.

It’s then Grace the Cat’s turn. She purrs while getting petted, then paws me and climbs on my shoulder to lick my head (I assume this is a cat thing). She hears the same things, except she’s the best cat in the universe (because she’s the only cat we don’t have to divide it by sex).

I have very little time to read in bed.

Every morning I greet the day and my kids with a smile and words of praise. Every night we end the day with praise and thanks for the day just ended. They greet me back.

The truth? Some days I adore my kids more than other days, which is exactly how they feel about me. Some days I adore more than other days. But I have my kids, and they have me. And we have our days, and nights.

We are a family. In its simplicity and routine we have found our way to love, and we use these rituals to deepen it. If we somehow skip them I feel incomplete, and by the looks of them, so do my kids.

When I hear that other families don’t do this, I wonder how their days, and family lives, really work. Do they just zip by, without remark, or appreciation? Does it matter?

I think it does. Could we change the world by doing this one simple thing—by beginning and ending our days with love and peace and respect for our families, regardless of the bodies they live in?

I say yes. I say we save the world, one family at a time, by honoring our families, day and night.

Simple daily rituals. It’s a start.

What are your rituals? What do they mean to you?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Yellowstone Adventures: Moose Kissing Beaver

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My friend, Margaret, and I decided to visit Yellowstone together. I can’t get enough of Yellowstone, she’d never been, and we knew between the Park’s bounty, our high spirits, and my clumsiness we’d have adventures. Especially since we had no intention of avoiding any (although Margaret thought seeing Old Faithful once was enough, which is just plain wrong).

Late May is a great time to visit Yellowstone: it can be cold and snowy, but it isn’t very crowded and the animals are active and close. For wild animals, who have no interest in either photo shoots or getting out of the road when you’re trying to drive on it.

Margaret and I are unabashed wolf groupies, so we hung out where the wolves were, and got lucky. News of wolf kills or sightings spreads quickly throughout the Park, which I learned by eavesdropping in bathrooms, a good reason to use social media.

We saw grizzlies and pronghorn antelope and deer, rabbits, coyotes, elk and bison, bald eagles, white pelicans, mountain goats, squirrels, chipmunks, birds of all kinds, animals everywhere. Herds and flocks and whatever you call it when there’s more than one and they aren’t mall rats.

We were heading out of the park when we tallied up our animal sightings. We’d seen pretty much every animal you could expect to see in Yellowstone, but no moose.

“Or beavers,” I said.

“Yeah, no beavers,” she said, giving me a look. I’m not sure she appreciated beavers any more than Old Faithful.

Seeing Yellowstone seemed incomplete without beavers, although I can’t say why. I don’t really think about beavers, and I could probably see them in Seattle, like bald eagles and river otters, which live in our neighborhood. I wanted to see animals we don’t have in Seattle, like wolves and bison and elk. In fact, as many times as I’d been to Yellowstone, I’d never even thought of looking for a beaver. That’s a backcountry thing, and I only do backcountry on videos.

But somehow I had beavers on the brain. It had something to do with tallying up our animal sightings, including baby bison (are they bisettes?) and elk (elkies?), wolves (pups), and grizzlies (cubs). And in the tallying we were thinking of what we hadn’t seen yet, and it was beavers. And moose.

We were on our way out of the Park, heading north from the Norris Geyser Basin, through the narrow, boxed-in, river-fed meadows leading to Mammoth Hot Springs and Gardiner.

We were talking about how lucky we’d been, from geysers and hot springs and mud pots to animal sightings. Then we saw the cars pulled over. In Yellowstone that means animals.

“What is it?” Margaret asked, concentrating on not running over anyone while she parked, a good thing.

It also gave me a chance to play Ranger Robyn, whipping out my binoculars to peek into the private lives of the wild and not-so-interested. I pointed them where everyone else was looking, down into a small grassy meadow. There was a moose placidly grazing, knee-deep in spring grasses.

“A moose!” I yelled. Yippee! We were almost out of the Park, and we could now add a moose to the tally!

We watched the moose for a few minutes as it hung out.

Then I saw it. Something tucked low in the grass, about 50 feet behind the moose. We’d seen elk being chased by grizzlies and wolves, and my heart sank. Briefly (I am, after all, an American). Moose sightings are rare even in Yellowstone, and this scene was pretty as an idyllic painting. And possibly not benign.

“Oh no!” I yelled. “There’s something else there, sneaking up on the moose!”

“What?” Margaret asked anxiously.

I could see the top of the head. What could that be? Wait, there was water nearby, lots of it. The animal was small.

“It’s a beaver!” I yelled.

“Really?” Margaret asked, excited.

And then the moose turned and looked at the beaver. And calmly meandered over to it, head down to peer closer.

“The moose spotted it and is going over!” I reported.

Do beavers fight moose? If so, why? Don’t they eat sawdust? What kind of a trick could a beaver pull to get a fresh moose on its plate? Did I really have to see the moose cream it? Yes. We need to know about nature, so we can avoid it.

But the moose wasn’t looking mad. Or violent. In fact, it looked, and acted, like it was in love. Moony and gentle.

“That moose likes the beaver,” I reported.

Margaret was grumbling, possibly something about city slickers and idiots, trying to distract me as she grabbed for the binoculars. I dodged her, hard to do in a car.

Then the moose moved in on the beaver, peering down at it, tender and loving. Then it …

“The moose is kissing the beaver,” I yelled.

Margaret yelled, “What? No, no, no.”

I didn’t get it either.

“Wait,” I said. “That can’t be right.” Even I knew that much about nature.

I stared at the moose kissing the beaver, who was kissing the moose back. Then the beaver stood up—wobbling on its baby moose legs.

“It’s a baby moose! The moose is kissing her baby!”

We howled in laughter. There’s nothing like friendship, when you can be dumb and your friends just laugh with you.

We watched the moose and her baby nuzzle each other, not a care in the world. Right then. I knew the odds in Yellowstone, even for moose. I hoped they’d make it, together.

Margaret and I still laugh at me thinking I’d just witnessed the impossible: moose kissing beaver. But really, wouldn’t it be great? Isn’t that what building community and multi-species families is all about, that anything is possible with love?

Frankly, I want to always be a person who’d think a moose and a beaver would kiss. Especially in Yellowstone.

What about you?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

You Are Your Brand: How Being a Lousy Criminal Can Be Good for Business

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Yes, being a lousy criminal can be good for our business. Let me explain.

We are our brands. As entrepreneurs, as people living our daily lives, everything we do reflects on our business, good, bad, or indifferent. It makes a difference. So how do we make that difference a good one?

By always thinking about how we build relationships, from our business to our personal and community lives. Because it always matters, no matter the task.

With the media spotlight on 24/7, we notice this on a large scale every day. What we don’t always consider is the small scale, where most of us live. How does our own behavior affect not just our business but our community?

Impressions stick, to our brands and to us. They affect what people think about our business and about us, what we think about ourselves, and, because I work as an intuitive, what our businesses think about themselves.

It’s not hard to be nice, but is it a winning strategy? Well, are you in it for the long haul, to both build a great business and contribute to your community, or are you planning to move to Mars?

Great businesses depend on developing—and keeping—good relationships. Especially when you goof up. How quick are you to recognize a problem and try to solve it so everyone benefits?

Here’s an example.

I’ve been going to Barnecut’s in West Seattle for over 20 years: I gas up my car, get flats repaired, get air for my tires. I value their friendly, concerned service.

Then came the day I stole gas from them. It was an accident. Honest. I slipped my card in the slot, pumped gas, wrote it down in my gas log, and drove off.

A few months later I drove up to get gas and the owner came out, smiling, saying: “Robyn, did you come to pay for your gas?”

Puzzled, I said: “Sure, but I have to pump it first.”

“No,” he said, “this was a few months ago.”

Puzzled, I followed him inside. A young attendant waited behind the counter, shaking in righteous excitement. “It’s her,” he said. “I recognize her and the car. She did it.”

I stared at him. He was stunned that he’d ID’d a criminal. Me. He held up a receipt they’d taped to the counter, convinced that I’d pumped $23.03 in gas and driven off without paying. They’d been keeping an eye out for me for two months, but apparently not a keen one, since I stop regularly.

I looked at the receipt. “Well, I see the name, Robin,” spelled wrong, as usual, “but I don’t have a Camry.”

“But it’s you, I recognize you,” he insisted. “And your car.”

Okay, this was getting tense. I went for humor. “So why didn’t you have me arrested?”

Well, they’d known me for 20 years, like you know a lot of people you bump into or buy things from, but they didn’t actually know how to find me. Arresting seemed extreme (and difficult). So they waited to get lucky.

What was hilarious and absurd was now serious. A long-term customer relationship was hanging. The owner was smiling, but tense. The young attendant was uncertain about pushing it. And I was what we all sometimes are: confused.

I hesitated. I could have a temper tantrum and walk out, upsetting all of us and ruining my reputation, and everybody’s day. Or I could calmly try to figure this out.

“Well,” I said. “I am clearly the worst criminal in the world. Not only did I have no idea I’d stolen anything, but I clearly didn’t get away with it.”

They cracked up and the tension immediately evaporated.

“So, would someone fill my tank for me while we figure this out?” I asked.

Another attendant ran to do that while I retrieved my gas log and we matched records. Sure enough, I’d written it down but there was a glitch in the pump system, so it had allowed me to pump gas without recording my card.

“Criminy,” I said to the owner. “People must drive off all the time without paying.”

“No,” he said, grinning. “Just you.”

We promptly settled up and I left. The next time I got gas, the young attendant who’d ‘caught’ me came rushing out to help me.

I laughed. “You’re never gonna let me pump gas again, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. Then laughed.

So here’s the thing. Barnecut’s and I both had proof that I was an accidental crook, a lousy criminal. What would I have done without proof? Pay up. Why?

Because I believe in their brand. And they believed in mine enough to hang onto a receipt until the next time they noticed me come in.

A year later I’m still buying gas from Barnecut’s, and they still tease that I can get free gas any time I want: after all, I’d been coming back for 20 years. But for a few minutes that day, a relationship and a reputation hung in the balance: theirs and mine. I chose to be a customer who listened to a business’s complaint and tried to resolve it. The same way I would if the situation were reversed. That was good for both our businesses and for me. It boosted my brand because I am my brand.

So how do you react when things go wrong? Do you figure out and and resolve the problem, or do you sever relationships and move on?

Business or customer, are you your brand?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

The Guardians of Alki

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Yes, I talk with gardens and the beings who look out for them: where I live, I call them the Guardians of Alki, because Alki Beach is our neighborhood, and the names the guardians have historically been assigned are mean and scary and not worthy of us or them. Besides, at the time it didn’t occur to me to ask them their name, or that it might be inappropriate (it is) to just give them one. This is how I learned a good lesson on naming.

The first time I saw the Guardians, I was closing up the house for the night when I noticed all these strange-looking beings were milling around in the backyard, on the wild, isolated hillside that few people can actually see. Some looked like walking trees, others like plants, others like combinations of people and plants. None of them looked human, but they were also picnicking and settling down to peep in my window! I had never seen anything that looked remotely like these beings, and all I could do was stare. Then, like any normal, rational human, I turned away, muttering, “Criminy, I need drugs.”

Of course, I couldn’t resist one more peek. That’s when they noticed me. “Look, there she is!” a few yelled, so I was sure that, yes, they were peeping! And making a game out of it! Then they waved at me.

Dumbfounded, I stared, then thought, Oh, what the heck (it’s kind of my motto now). I waved back. Slowly. Bemused, to say the least.

That’s how I met the Guardians. Turned out they were gardeners, so for the next year I worked with them to rehabilitate the ruined gardens at our condo, from the soil up (and yes, there were real humans doing the work, not me, I’m physically handicapped). Finally, it was October, and I was rushing to get plants into the garden before winter. These beings had been nothing but helpful: to the wild and domestic land that surrounds us to the amazing being that is our neighborhood. But winter was coming quick, and the plants weren’t yet purchased or planted. The Guardians were anxious to go into the garden before winter, so I invited them to come into my home and live with us for a month until the plants were in—as long as they first got approval from my animals.

One of the guardians, the smallest, shyest, and most unusual looking (like a possum with a bright green round bush growing out of its back) took me up on the offer and moved in. My animals didn’t mind, and it often made me laugh, because it would hide and peek out at me as I walked by, and then duck under the furniture when I teased it: “I can see you.”

Some time after that I read something that made me realize that other people didn’t call these beings Guardians. They were formally known as fairies, and many people used to think, and maybe still do, that fairies are bad guys and will hurt us if they can (why, I have no idea).

I was astonished that somebody with that kind of reputation would do what the Guardians had done: benignly, patiently help me build a garden. Or fail to identify themselves, which seemed, somehow, wrong. After all that work together, I thought they should have told me who they were. Why, I have no idea. (Note again that at the time it never occurred to me to ask them their name; I was arrogant and unthinking in simply assigning them a name based on the work I thought they did.)

Honestly, I didn’t really know what a fairy was, and still don’t. (One of the things my guides like about me is that I’m somewhat clueless about the in’s and out’s of things like witchcraft, shamanism, or folklore, so I’m bold and daring (they said this, laughing), or at least open to new experiences that aren’t pre-defined. For example, I think about talking with something, like an oil spill, and then I’m there. The first few times I did this I had no idea people called it astral traveling. I think this is also why I have such a large community of beings who accompany me on my conversational jaunts, as I sometimes goof up and need backup, and they are all easily amused. The closest I’ve come to accidentally killing myself I was tackled by an annoyed guide, so I’m learning to be more cautious.)

So anyway, there they were, looking at me, and I was mad. “You’re fairies?” I yelled. “You’re fairies? Why didn’t you tell me you were fairies?”

They very solemnly looked at me and said, “If you knew they called us fairies, would you have invited us into your home?”

That stopped me in my tracks. Would I? Does a name make a difference, or is it the work, or intent? What a lesson!

“Yes,” I said. “Because I know and trust your work. What they call you doesn’t matter.”

Something changed in that moment. They looked at me, at each other, and smiled. And when the garden was finally planted, the Guardians of Alki moved into it and settled down for the winter, including the little visitor. By then it was November, and quite mild. I worried about that. Even I knew it takes awhile for a garden to get established, and a freeze could ruin everything.

It was the land and the weather itself that answered me, joking. “Did you think we’d put you to all this work and then freeze the garden?”

I laughed and relaxed. We had a mild, dry winter that year, unusual for Seattle. In fact, I had to drag out the hose and water most of the winter. But spring was worth it.

And, a year later, a coyote appeared regularly outside my office window. For two springs and summers I grinned happily as I watched this wild dog play on an isolated hillside, nap, scratch its fleas, try to catch a bird shadow, tease my cat, dash away when it accidentally spotted me, and lounge while I worked. Yes, I knew more about animals than plants, had spent three years turning a ruined landscape into a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat, complete with some rare native plants, and yet what truly thrilled me was the coyote.

The Guardians knew that. When I exclaimed over the coyote, they said she was a gift, thanks from them for the work I’d done in the garden and on the hillside to re-establish a native habitat. They gently pointed out that their gift was the coyote, because they knew I liked animals better. I was happy but saddened, too. I really did love the garden, but the guardians were right: I loved the coyote more.

To this day I do not know what name the Guardians give themselves. I haven’t asked, and they like the name I instinctively called them. So the lesson in naming continues. And one in appreciation, too, because I really do love the garden, but that coyote…

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Is It Weather Worker or Weather Talker? How to Work with Weather

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I call myself a weather talker, not a weather worker. There is a difference.

A weather worker changes the weather, usually because the weather worker wants to. The weather and the land around it, including the guidance forces that created it, are not always consulted.

While many of us can change the weather (yes, change it), it’s rarely a good idea. In fact, it’s usually stupid. Why? Because humans just aren’t smart enough to know more about nature than nature itself does.

Before you object to that, consider our food supply. We can’t grow crops that are genetically diversified enough to keep us all from starving, so why would we be smart enough to know more about weather than the weather systems themselves, or their makers?

Here’s another thing. Everything is on a schedule; if you want to change that schedule it involves a lot of negotiation with many different beings. And there are always consequences, many unintended, all tricky, multi-layered, complex … never simple, and usually not understood until they’re upon us and impossible to avoid.

Being a weather talker is much more in balance with an earth paradigm, which sees all of life cooperating to build a healthy, balanced planet. If I’m interested in a weather change, I talk with the weather, and find out what’s going on. That’s how both sides learn: human and other.

I learn a lot about weather and the land by simply talking with it. These beings are often eager to talk with us, and when they’re not, they usually say why.

Sometimes, though, the prospect of talking with some of them is, well, daunting.

Okay, take a deep breath …

What would you say to a hurricane?

In Defense of Hurricanes

Is the planet’s weather changing? If so, why? Is there something we should do about it? If so, what?

Humans don’t understand hurricanes, and we absolutely have to. Now.

Hurricanes are massive cleansing forces. When a hurricane comes to an area, every being in its path, from human to building to plant to animal, everything gets to choose whether it will live or die. Everything. Whatever things look like afterwards, and I admit it can be terrifying and sad and disrupting, whatever it looks like is what needs to happen for the hurricanes to cleanse the land and the sea. Without them, the planet cannot survive. I know, easy to say, hard to live through, but it’s the truth.

Hurricanes are carefully planned and sent out into the world by what I call guidance forces (who laughed when I slipped one day and called them gods, because I have a lot of trouble with the god concept). Hurricanes are also fully conscious beings and actively choose whether to do the work they were created for, just like all of life. The problem is, like all of life, they can be manipulated, changed, so that they don’t do exactly what they were intended to do. They then go off course. This affects all the hurricanes that come after them, because if a job is left undone, everything behind it has to alter to try to do that work. This happens to all of life, but few things have the large-scale effect of a hurricane.

So, when humans construct machines to deflect hurricanes, or actively use their intuitive abilities to deflect them from land or to mitigate their strength, or to eliminate them entirely, we screw things up. Badly. We’ve been doing this for eons, and it has to stop. The hurricanes are really trying to save the planet, just like all of us. We need to understand and help them do their work by letting them do it. And we need to stand beside them with love and purpose and refuse to let other beings, including humans, change them. Hurricanes have the right and responsibility to choose to do their work whether we like it or not.

Humans are not the only beings that interfere with hurricanes, but we’re the only ones that most of us can really do anything about. If nothing else, we can change our attitude towards hurricanes. Every time we get mad and want one to go somewhere else, every time we fear one, we affect its course.

The one thing that all of us can do with hurricanes is literally thank them for their work and bless them on their way. You can do this whether you live in its path or not. All it takes is a simple thought sent its way, as you’re going to work, as you stop to get coffee, whatever. Remember, it is true, we all hold the fate of the world in our choice. We can choose to love a hurricane, which helps it do its work, or we can make everything worse by hindering it.

It’s really that simple. The ramifications are stunning.

In future posts I’ll tell the stories of the hurricanes I’ve met, and of the other weather systems I’ve worked with. I’ll write about how we can work with weather systems.

So what would you say to a hurricane?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Co-incidence and Community: How A Dog, Three Women, and a Book Saved a Life

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Cavaliers and catSometimes we wonder if we’ve done the right thing in life. Sometimes we get lucky and know we did, even though we were just trying to get by. Sometimes that story co-incidentally defines another, which is what building community is all about.

This is the story of how a chronically ill dog saved another dog 10 years later. Nobody saw it coming until it was over. It still makes me smile.

In 2010 I published a small gift book, with essays and comic stories about new ways of thinking about the human-animal bond. Bridging Species: Thoughts and Tales About Our Lives with Dogs, chronicled my journey of buying a dog as a pet, and how I ended up creating a multi-species family with two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Murphy and Alki, and Grace the Cat.

My publishing goal? To get people together to talk about what it means to see our animals as not just pets but family members, and how that can help us create community, one family at a time.

I was thrilled when East West Bookshop in Seattle created a book signing event for me. I had three choices for a date, and instantly chose July 16. It just felt right, and I quickly realized why: it would be Murphy’s 12th birthday.

Murphy’s birthday was a stunner all by itself. She’d come to live with me when she was 11 weeks old. We had lots of fun and too many problems: Murphy was chronically ill almost from the first, and at 2-1/2 years the anxiety and vet bills and just plain mystery and misery of her health woes were near to breaking both of us.

People told me to get rid of her and get a new dog.

People do that. The very idea shocked me, and even today is part of the reason why I work so hard to help define and live the idea of a multi-species family. Murphy’s problems were at times debilitating and often expensive, small things that added up and puzzled us, but never things that seemed worth killing her over. That just didn’t seem right.

By December 2000 Murphy had been suffering from a long-term infection no one could pinpoint. For some months she also had eye problems. We finally found Dr. Joyce Murphy, a holistic veterinary ophthalmologist who lived in Port Hadlock, a 5-1/2 hour round trip by car and ferry from our Seattle home.

The whole story is too long to recount here, but the gist of it is that Dr. Murphy took one look at her, exclaimed that she had the “medical record of a 13-year-old dog,” and promptly identified the problem. She operated the next day, essentially giving Murphy tear ducts and a tear gland she didn’t have, and the infection was finally resolved.

We’ve been going to see Dr. Murphy ever since. And when Murphy’s Cavalier brother, Alki, came along, he went there, too. And still does.

Dr. Murphy saved Murphy’s life, and, as I think about it, Alki’s, too.

She’s also been there for us through multiple traumas and illnesses, by phone or by appointment. Murphy, in particular, holds a special place in her heart.

Over the years I discovered that Dr. Murphy did a lot of volunteer work at the Jefferson County Animal Shelter. She and her partner and their staff have helped an awful lot of animals. Many happy multi-species families have benefited from her warm, generous heart and skilled veterinary services, families created through the shelter.

When I published my book I decided to give something back, to honor in my small way the work that Dr. Murphy did with my own—my writing. I gave her 5 copies and said to sell them and put the money into her shelter work.

Some time later the dogs and I were in Port Hadlock, getting a checkup with Dr. Murphy. She very seriously thanked me for donating the books to her practice, said that they had sold and the buyers thought my book was “excellent.”

She then told me what she did with the money. An older dog had come to the shelter, he needed “this and that,” medicine and surgery and general fixing up, but he’d recovered nicely, and was now in a happy home, as delighted with his new family as they were with him.

She said he lived because I donated book sales to the shelter.

In my usual blunt and occasionally tactless way I said, “I don’t think my books paid for all that.”

She didn’t miss a beat. She, too, is into creating community.

She said that her work as a vet and my work writing my book produced the sales that made the money that went to the shelter that saved the dog and created a new family.

“It’s all about community,” she said.

And she was right.

I felt pretty warm and fuzzy. My book got compliments and, bonus! somehow figured in saving an old dog’s life.

My old dog started it! It was her problems and our solutions that made me start thinking about looking at the human-animal relationship as something more than just a human and a pet. Dr. Murphy is the reason my Murphy lived, she’s how Murphy and I got the time to create a family that I could write about.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Clearly, Dr. Murphy is popular with dog people in these parts. One of her clients is a well-known, respected Cavalier breeder who had moved to the area from several states away. I didn’t even know that she was here or one of Dr. Murphy’s clients until she bought one of the books I donated to the shelter at Dr. Murphy’s office. And praised it so highly that Dr. Murphy passed on the compliment.

It was some of that Cavalier breeder’s money that bought the book that saved that old dog’s life at the animal shelter. And, 12 years earlier, that Cavalier breeder was also the owner of the stud dog who became my Murphy’s dad.

This was the story I shared at East West Bookshop at our book signing on July 16, 2010. On the very day that the little dog people kept telling me to give up on celebrated her 12th birthday: happy, healthy, energetic, a bit arthritic, and, practically unheard for a Cavalier at that age: heart clear.

Co-incidence? Let’s have more of them.

On July 16 people paid a small amount to come to my book signing. The money went to the Jefferson County Animal Shelter, in care of Dr. Murphy, to honor all of our work, together. We gave her $90, not a lot, but something.

And what she did with that money is another story, for another time.

For now, this is what I know: this story will never stop making me smile, just like the little dog who started it all.

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Sinking or Swimming While Writing Your Book

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The hardest book I’ve ever done? My own.

No kidding. Not even the analytical, skeptical, intuitive, optimistic cynic in me saw that one coming.

In all the years I’ve written and worked with other authors, nurtured them through the writing and publishing process, never have I had so much trouble! I astonished myself with the insecurities, self-doubts, indecisions, and writing quandaries that I routinely help other people through. I laughed at myself and couldn’t help it. I learned, again, why it’s so important to get competent outside help to develop and publish your book, whether you’re going the solo indie route or shopping it to an editor or agent.

I guess you call it living the process.

 

 

I was smart enough to hire the best designer out there: Robert Lanphear of Lanphear Design. Several years ago Bob had graciously agreed to work with me on a complex technical marketing book, and I’d promised him an art book some day. What he got was an idea for my book: a collection of essays and comic stories about how I created a family with my dogs (and cat), a small book that people could give as gifts. I’ll detail the story of how Bob made me not only finish the production of the book but re-think how I wanted it to look. How he was right. And why it mattered.

I was also smart enough to hire a wonderful photographer, Mary Van De Ven, who is also a massage therapist and Reiki master. Mary and I actually met in Reiki class, and have become good friends. After Bob refused to let me do my book cover the way I thought it should be done I hired Mary to conduct a new photo shoot, an exhausting 5-hour process (you try to get a cat to pose politely with two dogs) that ended with me and the dogs at the beach, pretty much how Bob and I had discussed it.

So here’s a public thanks to Bob and Mary for helping making my dream come true. And for the one thing no writer would ever dream of and absolutely needs: a cover that sells the book all by itself.

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

What It Means to Talk with All Life

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We can all talk with all life, from our food to our cars, animals to plants, businesses to homes, volcanoes to weather systems. Everything you can imagine—and many things you can’t—can speak with us. In fact, they are all already speaking to each other. In fact, the only ones who are not participating in an active, open dialogue with all life are humans. We are, so to speak, behind the curve, and have been for centuries.

Oh, Great, Another Spacey New Ager

I am not an airy fairy woo-wooey person. I am a cynic and a skeptic. I sometimes wonder why I am one of the people who can talk with other beings most of us had no idea could, or wanted, to talk with us. And were scary besides (like earthquakes and hurricanes). I think it’s because I also believe in the equality of all life, and am interested and respectful enough to have an open conversation with whatever wants to speak with me. I think it’s time for this ability to be taken seriously and shared with other humans, so we can regain an ability we’ve repressed for eons.

I believe that intuition and the ability to intuitively communicate is a practical, relevant ability that kept our ancestors alive. Like the abilities to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, their intuition kept them alive when large prey animals were sneaking up on them: they ‘knew’ when they were about to become lunch. Humans that didn’t have that ability, well, got eaten, and their lack of intuitive ability got wiped out of the gene pool with them.

I am, essentially, a translator. I tell the stories of the beings who speak with me. I help other people speak with them, whether the beings are our businesses and homes, our cars, gardens or animals. I also speak with wild/domestic land and weather systems. That means I speak with beings like volcanoes and hurricanes. We can do this, and, in fact, we do when we are angry because a hurricane is coming, frightened of an earthquake, and awestruck by a steam explosion at Mount St. Helens.

The key is to speak as equals, to hear and to share what we hear.

That’s what I do.

Why Are People Just Now Speaking to All Life?

People like me are pioneers, like it or not. We have our work cut out for us: helping people understand that everything out there is alive and has an attitude to share with us, and that we can share with them, is daunting. We can do this work because of the wonderful, brave people who became animal communicators 30 years ago. They went public about speaking with the beings we are most intimate with: our animal companions. It was strange, then, to talk with an animal, but thanks to these people it is increasingly accepted. And many people are doing it.

Animal communicators paved the way for people like me to talk with other beings and not get locked up for it. They helped open a space that humans had forgotten about. Now that some of us are hearing and talking with these other beings, we’re stepping up to tell their stories and to help other people talk with them.

Is it strange? Yes, but if enough of us keep at it, it will become commonplace. Which it should be.

Yes, people do think I’m crazy. I keep going, because I’m not.

When people read my stories, work with me, or come to an event to meet me and my crystal partner, Fallon, they are just like me: skeptical, cynical, analytical, and curious. Sometimes they are reverential, because they’ve had their own amazing experiences with other beings, especially crystals. And they leave believing that it’s all possible and real because of the calm, respectful, interested, and matter-of-fact way we go about our work at Alchemy West.

Every time someone makes their own connection through us, every time we hear about their experiences, I know that risking going public with who I am and what I do is worth it.

So, now, what do you think?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

Talking with Our Businesses: The First Principle

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I was surprised when I first spoke intuitively with a business. It just hadn’t occurred to me, even though I knew that everything is alive. Literally. A tricky part is how that reverberates in our lives, or, perhaps, whether we will allow it to.

For people the concept that other beings have something to say to us, the right to say it, and often need to, challenges the basic mindset that we’re the apex of civilization. We have different brains than animals, true, and someone once said to me that a home or a business doesn’t have a brain, so we’re better. I think it’s more like the human brain is designed to help our bodies survive and thrive as humans. Other beings don’t need that particular device, or need it in the same way we do. It makes them different, not inferior. Biology is destiny? Weirdly, sort of.

People often get hung up on the simple fact that we invented our cars, our homes, our businesses, and much of what surrounds us (like peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips or computers). Sometimes I’ll look at my Cavaliers and my cat and realize we invented them, too (and, of course, they invented themselves, especially cats!). People are good at winging it, and then imposing rules on what they end up with.

Because we invent things we think we’ve created them, in something approaching ‘divine’ fashion. This presumes, and assumes, inequality. But, birds build nests, ants build anthills, so why is a car or house any different? They are things we’ve decided we need to survive. So they come and help us do that. It really is that simple.

In the current state of the world we depend on our businesses to acquire the money to buy the things we need to survive, from food to shelter. Whether we work for someone else, or go out on our own as I do, we need our businesses.

And our businesses need us.

How My Business Was Born

It took me a long time to decide to combine my writing, editing, and intuitive work into one business. I wasn’t quite sure how it would come together; all I knew is that I needed to be patient, which is not my strength. (I believe meditation should take about 10 seconds, and I tend to do my intuitive work while doing other things­—multi-tasking to the extreme!)

Eventually I created two separate websites under one corporation that needed to represent the earth paradigm, the reality that all life actively cooperates to create a healthy future for our evolving planet. If we invited all life to participate with us equally, we would learn how to honor a hurricane and a weed, our homes and our food, our animals and our communities. Each of us holds the fate of the world in our choice—for humans, it’s our choice to be stuck-up humans or equal citizens on the planet.

Fine, but what was my corporation’s name? How could I describe transforming our culture and re-connecting people and the planet in terms that aren’t tied to the past? How could it be modern yet linked to the traditions it came from—our human past? I didn’t know, but I finally realized that my business would know, so I asked it what its name was. And back it came: Alchemy West. Of course. People are afraid of alchemy, because they think of dark occult weirdnesses, but alchemy is change, transformation, and this kind of alchemy is new, which my business thinks of as ‘west,’ and because we’re in Seattle, which is almost as far west as you can go before you fall off the continent.

My next step was to create websites when I have stubbornly refused to have a relationship with my computer (yes, I’m human and I goof up like everybody else). It took me months to settle on what I needed, sit down and do it, and find the right people to help me. In the process I became much clearer about what I needed out of business: community. I support other people and their businesses, but they don’t always support me. It’s a lesson I will continue to learn, because I’m optimistic and often too trusting for my own good.

What I didn’t realize was that my business had its own ideas about how it wanted to work, and that the many other beings I work with actually expected to be a part of the decision-making process. When I tried to do things strictly my way, for all the usual reasons, like giving business to friends to support their businesses as well, it didn’t always work. In fact, several times the failures were so huge that everything collapsed around me. Including what I thought were friendships.

Part of the reason was that the beings I worked with, especially the business itself, absolutely refused to cooperate with some people, and there was no getting past that. Plus, most of the beings who are part of my community and the Alchemy West Committee are not human: they are animals, volcanoes, beaches, my home, my desk, guides, crystals, salt lamps, the list goes on (and, yes, my computer)! Try to get all those beings to agree on a logo or the words on a page!

We had our goofs, but we finally did it. It took over a year for Alchemy West to gel and for me to get brave enough to combine all my work into one website, and then to launch our online magazine, Bridging the Paradigms.

More on that in upcoming posts.

How Do We Talk with Our Businesses?

I help people talk with their businesses. Conversations include business direction, mutual concerns, shared growth. The focus is on how they grow and learn together.

No, I do not tell people how to make millions of dollars or handle marketing or organizational development. Yes, I have formal business training, including an MBA, but this is about building a new relationship, one that assumes you and your business are equal partners, even though you may very well have different agendas. It’s a new mindset.

And that’s how you start, with thinking about your business as an equal partner. What first comes to mind when you consider that?

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

(c) 2008-2025 Robyn M Fritz

Email or Phone Robyn

Contact Robyn

206.937.0233 PST Seattle WA USA
Email: robyn@robynfritz.com