There are times when I truly believe that there are no coincidences and this is one of them. According to yahoo!news, a woman who traveled to another country to track down the father she never knew ended up working for him! They discovered this by chance when she accidently left some things he had given her mother behind. Reading the story just left a smile on my face and really brought home the fact that things happen for a reason. Here's hoping they have many years of catching up ahead.

I thought you all might enjoy reading a couple of articles I did on AC. Both are interviews. One is with a friend of mine who gives readings and another is with a girl from one of my groups who is a hypnotist. Both were a lot of fun to do and I learned a lot from getting the chance to talk to them about these things.

I love the holiday season. The music and decorations; spending time with people I love. To me, there is nothing better and I look forward to it every year. There is one thing I don’t look forward too, though: the inevitable "Happy Holidays" debate. It seems every year, it is the same old story as some of the more conservative step up and take offense to the term. Some of the more common defenses of "Merry Christmas" include the fact "Jesus is the reason for the season" and "It’s Christmastime, darn it!! Say so". Once, I even read a post basically saying that Pagans can do evil the rest of the year if they want to, but they need to leave "my" holiday alone.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put down Christians or Christmas. I happen to be part of a Christian faith and believe in Jesus and God and all that. I also happen to celebrate Christmas. However, I have also done a lot of reading on ancient pagan faiths and will not be blind to facts.

The Holiday season is made up of much more than just Christmas, so saying "Jesus is the reason for the season" is problematic. There is also Chanukah, Kwanza, Yule and others. Let’s also not forget that the Holiday season also includes Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Having one term that recognizes this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I have a feeling these same people would not be complaining if everyone was forced to say "Merry Christmas" even though they do not believe in or celebrate the holiday.

I also cannot understand how some of the more radical claim that Pagans are stealing "their" holiday. When we celebrate Christmas, we are in actuality celebrating Yule. The customs of decorating a tree, hanging holly and mistletoe, etc all began with Yule. The early church then took these customs and re-named them to make Christianity more palatable to a people who were reluctant to convert.

Personally, I don’t care what people celebrate or what greeting they choose to say during the Holiday season. I do, however, get a bit annoyed when I hear some of the more tyrannical members of a faith I think is a wonderful thing spew what amounts to hate speech and act as though they are persecuted for their beliefs. Isn’t Christianity supposed to be about love and acceptance? In that case, why is it so hard to accept the fact the Holiday season is about much more than one specific day? If people want to truly practice what Christ preached, instead of getting snippy and defensive when someone says "happy holidays", give them a smile and wish them the same. Donate a toy so some kid won’t go without this year. Make a donation to a cause. That is the real spirit of Christ’s teachings and the holiday.

Here's another odd experience for you. It involves dreams. One night, I dreamed I was living in this house that we lived in when I was 10 years old. My grandmother still owned it and rented it out to people after we left. During the dream, I saw a door in the kitchen that led outside.  Low and behold, we end up moving back into the house a couple of years ago, and there's that door, in the exact same place I had dreamed it was. It wasn't there when I lived there, and I did not know if had been added. That's my strange happening for this time. I'll post more another time. In the meantime, join in with your own! I'd love to hear them.

I had promised awhile back in a response to one of my comments that I would share some weird things that have happened to me. Here's one of them...

Until a year ago, my boyfriend used to live in Pennsylvania and I was in Florida. As you can imagine, we spent a lot of time talking on the phone. One day, I had to go out and as usual, I took my cell phone with me. While I was out, I happened to look down at my phone and see that it had his name up, as though I were trying to call him. I turned the phone off and finished up what I doing, then headed home. When I got back, I see a message waiting from him. He had called my house phone at the same time my cell tried to place a call to him. To this day, I can't explain how that happened. It's just one of the many coincidences I have had happen to me.

Stay tuned for more another time. Meanwhile, why not share some of your stories? I'd love to hear them.

Most people have heard about the concept of past lives. It's widely accepted in many Eastern traditions and has gained a bit more attention here in the West. There have been many stories on various shows of kids and adults who knew things they shouldn't or felt an almost unexplainable connection and recognition of a place they have never been to. While I try never to dismiss anything outright (you never know!), I have not always been entirely convinced of this. Then something happened to open up my mind to the possibility a couple of years ago.

I had just joined a spiritual group that was having regular chats. One of these chats was a series on learning how to sense and read (ie- give psychic readings). It seemed like an interesting topic, so I joined in. During one particular chat, the girl leading it asked us to try and sense a past life for our partner. She was going to sense all of us and share her impressions when we were all done sharing ours. For me, she saw a life as an Indian woman in the west during the 1800s. She said that life ended at the age of 27 due to a lung disease. Here's where it gets a little odd and made me wonder a bit...

When I was a kid, I had a fascination with that time period. I still do, to an extent. I used to play as though I were actually living on a farm in the old west, in fact. Adding to the weirdness of the whole thing is the fact that 27 was the age I had developed an odd fear of death all of a sudden. It was also the same time I came down with a bad case of bronchitis... something I hadn't experience for several years up to that point. I had never told her or any of the others about this and have no idea how they could know, as I had not even told family and friends offline either of these things. I won't say this is definitive proof, but it does give me pause and has made me more interested in the subject.

So what do you all think? Do you believe in the concept of reincarnation? Have you had any experiences similar to the ones I described above? If so, I'd love to hear about it. That's about all for now. Til next time, take care and blessings to you.

I'm a huge fan of old TV shows, especially I Love Lucy. I think it is one of the finest sitcoms ever made and the cast is one of the best there has ever been. Given my love of the show and my interest in spiritual topics, this article was a great read. I came across it while browsing the I Love Lucy section of  the TelevisionWithoutPity.com forums. It discusses Lucy's interest in Numerology and Astrology (something she later worked in the series) as well as her religious experimentation. Lucy's spiritual search appears to have been something she worked at most of her adult life in an effort to acheive the happiness that was eluding her. I guess it shows that fame, money and power can only take you so far.

How many of you keep a regular Dream Journal? If you don't, you should. It's a great way to keep track of each dream so you can better analyze them. It can also be very enlightening to look back on old dreams. Sometimes, I've even gotten story ideas from them. Here are some things you might want to keep in mind when keeping a journal...

1) Keep the notebook and a pen/pencil close to your bed. That way, you won't be as apt to put off writing your dreams down.

2) Write in it as soon as you wake from a dream. The longer you wait, the more you will forget. Trust me on this one. I can't tell you how many I have lost by not writing in mine right away. I'm trying to correct that now.

3) Try and be as detailed as possible in each entry. You never know what minor detail could end up being important later on.

4) If you don't remember a dream that morning, write about one from your childhood you remember. You could also use it to take notes on dream books or make up your own archetypes. The more you write in it, the more you will remember your dreams.

I hope these tips help you out while exploring your subconcious mind. Let me know how they work out for you. In the meantime, take care and blessings to you. Later!!

WARNING: If you haven’t yet done the dream exercise, stay away! You will definitely want to complete it before you see the detailed explanations here and in Part 2. So, you already drew your pictures, read what each means and you’re still confused about actually making sense of it all. To interpret it, take a look at each thing carefully. Is your house far away from the sun? Is the sun small and kinda removed from the picture? This probably means you and your father are not very close. The opposite is true if you drew the sun to be large or with big rays coming off it. These same ideas apply to the water and your mother.

How about your house? Did you go ahead and add details? This means you have confidence and try to look your best. Is there a walkway leading up to it? That should indicate you are an open and friendly person. Same goes for it you drew big windows.

The tree. Again- is it close to your house? Is it looking big and healthy, or did you make it small and sparse? This should tell if you use your intellect and think things through a lot or if you are a bit disconnected from it. Same goes for the snake and your sexuality.

I guess you can see now how valuable this exercise is when you are trying to learn to interpret dreams. It gets you thinking more about the symbolism in each image. Next time, I’ll post something about Dream Journals, another important part of interpreting your dreams. Til then, take care and blessings to you!!

This card is courtesy of the Tarots Cards website. I thought it best not to scan my actual tarot cards. The deck I use, The Goddess Tarot, is different. I'll give you a brief description of the one from my deck:  The card shows a side view of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna. She is flanked on each side by winged lions and is holding a half-moon in her hand. In Sumerian culture, Inanna was the Goddess of Love, War and Fertility, so I think she's an interesting choice here.

The Star is part of the Major Arcana, so it's message is even more important if you get it. Should you get this card in your reading, you are being told to follow your dreams and don't be afraid. It may also mean that success and good luck is coming, so this is a great one to get. If the card is reversed (upside down), this is saying you are too wrapped up in fear and insecurity and you are not doing what makes you happy.

Ok, so hopefully by  now, you've drawn the five objects listed in the other post. If you did, you are ready to read on. If not, I'd suggest not reading the rest of this post until you have. It may mess up the results.

Each of the objects in the exercise are meant to represent a certain thing. According to the book, the house symbolizes you. The Sun is your father, while the water is your mother. The tree represents your intellect and the snake represents your sexuality.

This exercise is meant to get you to see this symolism and have some practice in making sense of it all, so take a good look at each object. Did you draw one object bigger then another? Is the water really far from your house? Did you make the house large and detailed or just plain? If you are having trouble making sense of it all and would like me to interpret it for you, upload the picture to your personal space and let me know in a comment here. 

Well, that is all for now. Check back, though, as I'll be updating this and my other blogs often. Til next time, take care and blessings to you.

So, how many of you are into dreams and dream interpretation? If you are, you may want to try out this exercise I found in the book  Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams. I have tried it with a couple people in the past and I was pretty surprised by the results.  Make sure you read the whole post before you try it. The exercise is really simple. All you have to do is draw the following objects in this order:

1) A house
2) The Sun
3) Water
4) A tree
5) A snake

When you draw them, don't think too much. Just let instinct take over and do your thing. Also, don't worry if you are a horrible artist. I am, and I was able to do it. I'll post further instructions about the exercise in another post, since you will want to do this part before you continue.

As promised, here are a couple articles I did for associated content about spiritual topics. One is about how to enhance your own intuition. Another is about giving Tarot readings. I hope you enjoy them and it gives you something to think about. I welcome any comments or questions you have about the articles.

I've always had an interest in all things spiritual and paranormal, so I thought I would create a blog about it. Here, I'll be talking about dreams, Tarot, Meditation, Gnosticism, Wicca and other subjects like this. I hope that you enjoy it. I'll start things off by linking you guys to a couple articles I did on Associated Content in a post a little bit later. I hope y'all will enjoy and I can't wait to read your comments. Til then, take care and blessings to you.