Today’s topic, vision boards, deals with a subject that I had firmly decided was pure wishful thinking, totally without merit. My first and only encounter with the idea of vision boards was long ago on a random episode of Oprah, in which she rhapsodized about setting up a board, pasting on it pictures of all of your dreams, wants, and desires, then sitting back and watching them manifest themselves. Pure hokum, I thought, and promptly put the idea of vision boards out of my head. Well, my Angels foxed me again. Inadvertently and unwittingly, I created a vision board, set it up in the perfect line of sight, instinctively adopted the correct mind-set, and succeeded in manifesting something that I had considered impossible, in a time-frame out of my wildest dreams.

It all started as I was translating into English the first volume of an extremely popular Hungarian fantasy series (sort of “Harry Potter” meets “The Lord of the Rings”). One of the characters in the story is a sporty, little, red, bewitched car by the name of Rouge Red. My friend, Béla (see also Archives, August 31, 2010 Erzsébet the Nutrition Angel and September 1, 2010 Erzsébet at work), and I used to laugh and joke together that once the book was published, I would buy a hot little red car and call her “Rouge Red”. Also in fun, he made the most outrageous claim that she would be a Mercedes Benz, because everyone knows that published authors are a rich lot. No, I told him, Rouge Red is definitely a BMW. We would continue in this vein, being as outrageous as possible, and just laughing our heads off. Great fun.

So, this past February, my elderly BMW (which I had purchased 8 years ago for a pittance as a used car and which now had nearly 200,000 miles on it) ran into a wheel-bearing problem, so I took it to the dealer for service. Usually when I wait for my car, I just sit down in the waiting area and read, because it would do me no good to browse the showroom. Those cars are all shiny and new, but with those price tags, they might as well all be on the moon. For some unknown reason, though, I decided to look around in the showroom this time, unrealistic price tags or not. My eyes fell on a 328xi in vermillion red and I was immediately in lust. Not only love, but lust. Never in my life have I lusted after a car and here I was, hopelessly, helplessly, irrevocably in lust. Immediately I knew that I had met Rouge Red in person. Except that I didn’t have a spare $42,000 in my pocket. Besides that, even if I had had that much money to spend, I wouldn’t spend it on a car, because of the depreciation factor. Still, enthralled, I looked her over. She was perfect: size, color, interior, accessories, you name it, she had it, and it was all perfect. I felt like Dorkness falling head over heels for a supermodel. Sighing, I acknowledged the impossibility of my desires, gave her one last, longing look, and sat back down to wait for my elderly car to be fixed.

Despite not a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever having this little red car in my possession, I did some research on this model BMW and began musing. Just for fun, I also looked up the Blue Book value of my 1999 323i, which came to the grand total of $2,000. That was a bit of a shock, but it gave me a good laugh. My elderly BMW (which I loved driving) was worth way more than that to me, and I gave it not another thought. Over several days, I told some of my friends and co-workers about the car and just generally gushed about it. We all agreed that it’s nice to have a dream and left it at that. But my Angels did not leave it at that. A few weeks later, BMW marketing sent me a packet containing their new offerings for 2012. Included in this packet was a 4X6 glossy photo of a representative car of each of their models. One of them was, you guessed it, a photo of a red 328xi. I laughed out loud. How funny, I thought. Here they even send me a photo of Rouge Red, just to tease me. Throwing away all of the ads, I kept the one photo and put it in a prominent place in my keeping room (kitchen). Each and every time I went past it, I alternately drooled and laughed.

I had a great time telling this story to my friends and co-workers. In the meantime, I began to wonder just how I could have this car in my possession. The best idea I could come up with was to contact the dealer in two year’s time. Perhaps the price would have dropped significantly by then, and I would have a better chance of affording it. A 50% price reduction would sit well with me, as that would put it in the same price range as a Toyota, Honda, or Subaru. Again, though, these thoughts were just idle fancy, for I had truly accepted that having this car in my possession was an unrealistic fantasy. And I was OK with that. Despite my lust, I accepted that I could not afford this shiny machine, no matter what my lust told me. Heaving the sigh of unrequited love, I went about my business.

April came and time to take off the snow tires. Again taking my car to the dealer, I sought out Rouge Red in the showroom. She was gone. It’s just as well, I thought, and settled down to wait. Soon, the service manager, who I have known for many years, came out to discuss my bill with me. Just in conversation, I mentioned that I had looked up the Blue Book value of my car and was shocked at the figure. I told him that it was worth way more than $2,000 to me. We laughed, then he asked me whether I had seen the BMW ads on TV, $328/month for a 328xi. He explained that I could lease that car for 30 months for $328 per month. He told me about another customer who, like me, had an elderly BMW with 210,000 miles on it, and she had leased a car. He said that both he and his girlfriend had also each leased one. “Where else could you get into a $42,000 BMW for that kind of money?” he asked. “Nowhere”, I answered. The thought was intriguing, but I still dismissed it. It still seemed like a pipe-dream to me. Telling him I would think about it, I paid my bill and went home.

The next afternoon, my phone rang. It was a salesman from the BMW dealership, calling me at the recommendation of the service manager. This was amazing. I felt as if the Universe was cramming this car down my throat, no matter that I was not particularly interested. This salesman answered all of my objections satisfactorily. It seemed that BMW could accommodate even the fussiest potential customer. I agreed to meet with him the next day, and then it was all over. My credit application was accepted, they found me my Rouge Red (with a moon/sunroof, no less), and I am now in possession of this impossible dream, leasing it at a price I can afford, with the option to buy it after 30 months for approximately $25,000. I am still in shock.

In shock, I called one of my longtime friends to tell her the story. At the end, she simply said, “vision board”. When that didn’t make sense to me, she told me that pasting pictures on a board, looking at them frequently, and keeping one’s mind open is the fastest way to achieve the results of one’s desires. She, herself, had manifested her horse, Bay, in this manner. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Something I had completely dismissed as bogus had just resulted in giving me something I had desired, and in an inordinately short time. Of course, now I am all afire, with no end of ideas for my new vision board.

Again, dear Readers, your Angels have chosen me as the guinea pig so that through my own experiences you can profit and gain in abundance, both materially and spiritually. The environment needed for success with your vision board is, first of all, a vision, idea, desire. Obtain a picture of it. Look at this picture often. Next, adopt the correct mental outlook for success. This appears to be an open receptiveness, with no urgent requirement for immediate fulfillment. Keep it loose and sweet; don’t grasp and grab (these attitudes will result in failure). Leave it up to your Angels to know the correct time for delivery. Finally, just sit back, marvel, and enjoy as your heart’s desire arrives on your doorstep.

Once in a while, direct evidence comes showing that, indeed, the greater world really, truly exists. Such an experience came to me not long ago, and I am thrilled to share this with you, dear Readers. One of my co-workers, Sue, told me this story that totally gave me goose bumps.

Just recently, Sue’s mother-in-law had collapsed suddenly from a stroke and was taken to the hospital. While there, she lay in a coma, unresponsive. One of her adult children, who had been born with Down’s syndrome and had lived at home all of his life, visited his mother in the hospital. At his visit, the mother, although in a coma, began singing “Over the Rainbow” with her handicapped son as the rest of the family stood nearby, aghast.

While in the hospital, Sue noticed a particular smell surrounding her mother-in-law, which seemed to emanate from her breath. Despite the excellent mouth care given by the staff, Sue’s mother-in-law’s breath had a particular odor, which, Sue says, she had smelled on her father, as well, as he neared the transition that we call “death”.

The day that the mother-in-law died, Sue was in the car with her husband. Turning her head, she suddenly smelled her mother-in-law’s breath. Surprised and shocked, Sue turned to her husband: “Did you smell that? It’s your mother!” The husband concurred; he had also detected that particular smell. Not much later, Sue’s brother-in-law, the son, also detected the smell, which was a shock to him, since he does not believe in any of this “hocus-pocus”.

In questioning Sue closely, she told me that she had smelled this particular odor first when her father began to fail. Up until then, he had exuded no particular odor, but as he took a turn for the worse, Sue began to smell the odor. As with her mother-in-law, Sue’s father “appeared” to his family through their sense of smell. Sue and her mother were sitting in the kitchen, talking, when suddenly Sue spoke up: “It’s Dad! I can smell him!” Then it was Sue’s mother turn. She also smelled the odor, which quickly faded.

The mother-in-law passed, but she had another trick up her “sleeve”. A funeral was planned. Sue went to the funeral home to pick up the small prayer cards that are traditional in some services. One of them fell to the floor. She picked it up and read it. At the bottom of the card were the words “somewhere over the rainbow”. Confused, she called the funeral home, asking how it happened that those words were included at the bottom of the card, when no one had ordered it. The reply was that those words could only have been included if someone had requested this inclusion—but no one living had.

This story is intriguing on many levels. First, of course, it corroborates the fact that none of us “die” but continue intact into the afterlife. Not only that, but for some reason, many who have passed feel a strong need to communicate with the loved ones left behind, to reassure them that they are not gone, but are just in a different reality. Secondly, the sense of smell is not one that I have ever associated with messages from the “other side”. For myself, I have had the experience of seeing a strange whiteness that began emanating from someone’s body a few days before that person made the transition. This experience was so unusual that it took me quite aback. I was working in a long-term care facility. One of the residents was a dynamic elderly man, who had recently had a stroke, but was recovering. Nothing kept him down. If he couldn’t walk, he rode in a wheelchair. If something was out of his reach, he devised a way of reaching it anyway. Nothing was keeping him down for any reason. In the midst of this amazing recovery, I happened to walk past his room. The door was open and he was sitting in his wheelchair, eating. His body was in profile to me and his face was clearly visible. As I glanced in, he appeared to emanate a whiteness from within. He did not glow, just emanated whiteness. The vision was so strange that I stopped momentarily, trying to understand what I had seen. When no explanation was forthcoming, I continued on my duties. Three days later, he died. Subsequently, I noticed this whiteness on several women, who also died a short time after the color was visible on them.

The odor Sue and her family was able to detect on their loved ones is the first I had heard of this phenomenon. Apparently, our loved ones are quite capable of determining which sense would be most useful in alerting us to their continued existence and tailor their communication to us with this thought in mind. My experiences have been only with sight. Sue’s have been only with the sense of smell.

Whatever method of communication deceased loved ones choose, their ties to family show how much they still care and how much they seek to reassure the ones left behind. As we hone our ability to receive from the spiritual world, we, too, become the recipients of untold blessings.

Happy Spring to you, dear Readers. After a long winter of being out of the “zone”, the longer daylight has turned my lights back on again and so your Angels are back, brighter than ever. They started today with two unusual occurrences, which I share with you.

I was asleep, all snug as a bug in a rug, when I heard a cat meowing very sharply and insistently—it was my cat, Sadie, to be precise. This awoke me instantly. But, Sadie had gone to the Rainbow Bridge almost four years ago, so I knew that something wanted me to get up. I did not wish to get up, however, so I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep. Not long after, I distinctly heard two loud knocks on my side door. Grumbling, I grabbed my robe and trudged to the door, opened it, and found no one there. Okay, I thought. I get it. I have to get up and mail that birthday card to my great nephew, whose fourth birthday is April 1. Now obedient, I washed up, dressed, and mailed that apparently important birthday card.

The second occurrence had to do with work. Being scheduled to work today, my plan had been to leave early to pick up some jewelry, then go to work from there. As I headed up the stairs to dry my hair, a voice told me that I would be canceled today. I considered calling the office to check, but decided against it. Still, I dawdled over preparations. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on my grooming, the phone rang and I was greeted with the option of staying home.

On the face of things, these two incidents seem to be completely unrelated, and I confess to being in the dark as to their significance. For some reason, it was vital for me to mail that birthday card today, and it was important for me to stay home, hence the attention to my getting up and the forewarning that I would be canceled. To get me out of bed, something knew that I would respond to the sound of my cat, Sadie’s, voice. Or, failing that, that I would definitely respond to a knock at the door. As for preparing me to stay home, the voice with its message couldn’t have been more clear: “You will be canceled today”. The choice was still mine, but it is true that if I had ignored that initial voice or had hurried to get out of the house, I would have missed the wonderful opportunity of being home to share these interesting occurrences with you, dear Readers. Having learned to trust these voices, feelings, and urges, I am much more open to them than formerly, although I still fight them on occasion.

You, too, have senses, feelings, urges, intuitions, perhaps even voices, that give you information, encourage you to particular activity, or warn you against danger. Your Angels urge you to practice trusting the seemingly small and insignificant instructions given you. Even if directions seem nonsensical to you now, you will learn in time that everything is for your best interests. All is for your highest good.

While I like to have a theme in consecutive posts, a unique thought was dropped into my head while I was busy at work, which I would like to share with you, dear Readers. The thought was bundled in completeness, which I then had to pick apart in order to make sense of it. As I was bringing water to a patient who had had a hip replacement, the sudden knowing came to me that events occur in sudden shifts and jumps, rather than in orderly fashion. Rather like the quantum theory, for those of you schooled in chemistry: an electron is found in areas, but this electron does not make an orderly path which can be followed. Instead, it jumps from locale to locale without any evidence of how it made the trip. So, too, events and changes in our lives occur in sudden shifts and jumps, without an orderly path from the past through the present to the future.

As I marveled at and contemplated this piece of information imparted to me from Heaven, I waited for more to come. Sure enough, after I had digested this awesomely simply, yet profoundly moving thought, more came to me in pictures. While it is true that change happens in sudden shifts, these shifts are dependent on a persistence of effort that seemingly is without effect for long periods of time. Effort is maintained and after a critical point is reached, a shift occurs that profoundly changes one’s circumstances. Viewed from the outside, others would see this as instantaneous success in some area.

Picking these two ideas apart brought to mind the term “overnight success”, often applied to entertainers, singers, actors, and the like. Talking to those who have been called “overnight successes”, one learns that these people have put in many, many years of hard work, often in relative obscurity, until, one day, the shift occurs and they are noticed by the public, after which their lives are not the same. In other words, it takes ten years of persistence effort to become an overnight success.

Realizing the nuances of the two thoughts put into my head gave me to understand how important is the virtue of persistence in our lives, a virtue not highly regarded at present. Persistence is what keeps us doing the tasks and forming the attitudes from minute to minute that will result in the quantum shift. Persistence, then, is the life-blood of success in any endeavor. Keep doing what you’re doing, keep at it, keep on keeping on, even when things don’t seem to change. Keep at it and, at some point, suddenly everything shifts. How long this takes is unknown and seems to change from event to event. Some shifts happen more quickly; the larger the shift from a present position, usually the longer will be the dormant period. Even that is not set in stone, however, since belief and expectation will often expedite the process. The important point is to keep the faith and continue in your endeavors, no matter that you seem to be making no headway.

This may seem to be a rather dry posting, but I assure you, dear Readers, that it is of the utmost importance to you in your present circumstances. Perhaps some of you are stuck in what appears to be a rut. You have been working at change for so long, yet nothing seems to be different. Perhaps some of you think to give up in your endeavors because no reward seems to be forthcoming. Your Angels are assuring you that every moment spent in your new attitude, your new outlook, your new behavior is precious and will ultimately lead to that shift in your lives for which you have been waiting. Keep at it, keep the faith, and call on your guides and Angels when the going gets rough. After all, it was they who dropped these thoughts into my head, so I could share them with you, so you could continue with your excellent work. They also wish for you to know that information will also come to you if you stay open; and that this information does not always come only when you are meditating or somehow calm. For me, it came at the height of stress and in the most unusual circumstance, as I was handing water to a patient who was nattering on about some trivia. Stay open, stay focused, stay persistent, and you will reap untold rewards.

Tags: quantum shift

Hello, dear Readers. On this day after Thanksgiving, I wish to share with you a story that started out in disaster and ended in gratitude, with much to be thankful for.

About a month ago, the Northeast was inundated with a snowstorm such as has not been seen in quite some time. It left nearly 31 inches of wet, sticky snow in some areas, felled trees, knocked out power lines, and gave some of a real run for our money, as we waited for 5 days, or more, for the power to came back on.

The story: I left work that night at 11:30 pm with high hopes that I would be able to beat the storm and arrive safely at home, 25 miles away from where I work. Although my Angels had been nudging me to have my snow tires put on before the end of October, I resisted, thinking that snow doesn’t usually fall much before the first days of December. So, no snow tires. And without snow tires, my car acts like it’s on a greased griddle when there’s so much as one flake on the road. With this handicap, I set off into the hills of central Massachusetts.

The going was terrible. It being a Saturday, no snow plows were out. I made it out of the city by the skin of my teeth, shouting at my Angels at each and every hill to help me get up them. Several cars and trucks tailgated me until I slid across the road, then, they all stayed far behind me, so I was not in danger of hitting them. By sheer will and adrenalin, I made it to within ten miles of where I live. Here, several police cars blocked the road. The police were waiting for the highway crews to cut through the trees that had fallen across the country road, so we waited while they cut. In speaking to the officers, they told me that going to my town would be “pretty rough” and that I would have been better staying in the city where I work. Argh! I couldn’t turn around because I’d never get back up those hills again, with the snow falling the way it was. There was nothing for it, but to forge ahead.

Forge ahead I did, taking all the roads that ran around the big hills. Then, I came to another stop. This time it was a pick-up truck in the road. I hopped out of the car and ran to see what was up. It was a tree, right across the road. So didn’t the driver jump out of his truck, take a chainsaw out of the truck bed, and proceed to cut up that tree! At this point, I began to see a pattern. As the man cut, I dragged branches off the road until it was cleared enough for one lane trafflic. By this time, there was a respectable line behind us, and don’t you know, my car started to spin because of not having snow tires. Several people behind me helped push my car back onto the road and we all went ahead until the next tree stopped us. This was no one-man, one-chainsaw tree. But, as luck would have it, the highway department guys were on the other side of that tree with BIG chainsaws and sawed us out in good time. Most of the cars were stopping in that town, but I still had ten miles to go. No one was hopeful, but they wished me luck.

With adroit maneuvering and hollering at my Angels, I made it to the base of the 2 1/2-mile tall hill that separated me from Home Sweet Home. First, I tried a side road around the hill, but the little incline was too much for my snow tireless car and I ended up sideways across the road. Again, with some kind of luck, I was able to turn around and head back to the tremendous hill. Gamely, I went for it. I made it around the U-curve and headed up, only to become stuck in a snowbank on a curve. Any car or snow plow coming by would not see me and just wipe out my car, so it was obvious that I couldn’t stay in it.

What to do? My intention was to leave the car there and walk up the 2 1/2 miles to my house in the raging snowstorm–this is what adrenalin can do for you. It gives you all kinds of superhuman strength, but not a lot of common sense. My iPhone was in my purse, and although I get no signal at the top of the hill, for some reason the bottom of the hill gave me 5 bars. Accessing the internet (thank you, Angels!), I googled the police dispatch phone number for my town and requested permission to leave my car where it was. Permission was denied, but they sent out an SUV with beautiful snow tires to help me out. The officer first tried to push my car out of the snow bank, but no go. He then called a tow truck that pulled me out, so all I had to do was back down the rest of the hill in the blinding snow to the parking lot at the bottom. Needless to say, I got stuck several times and had lots of trouble getting out, but finally made it to the parking lot. The police allowed me to park my car and they took me home.

When we reached my driveway, I realized that even if I had made it up that hill (which was impossible), I would not have been able to drive into my driveway because of the two feet of snow blocking it. The nice policeman walked with me to my door, made certain that I was safely in the house, then left. Although there was no snow inside my house, neither was there any electricity. That meant no lights, no heat, and no water. The temperature was 45 degrees inside, but at least there was no snow. While the storm raged outside, I was cuddled up under 15,000 blankets, thanking my lucky stars that I had made it home in one piece. What usually took 45 minutes, had taken 3 1/2 hours and all of the adrenalin I had stored for the next year.

So why is this story post-worthy? It is not a universal whine or even a “why me?” tale. After going over the events in my mind, I was aghast at all of the many places where divine intervention had mitigated a disastrous situation. First of all, so many people were on the road at that hour. Usually, I run into nearly no one at that hour of the night, but everywhere I turned, it seemed to be wall-to-wall people. Secondly, even though my car had no snow tires, I was able to go up hills that should have been impossible obstacles. Thirdly, wherever trees had fallen onto the road, someone with a chainsaw was present to cut a path. Even around here, people don’t usually have chainsaws in the backs of their pickup trucks, yet here was a lone driver who had his chainsaw, and he was there to help me. And when that really BIG tree was across the road, no less than the Highway Department (!) with BIG chain saws was on the other side, cutting a path on the road. Amazing. Fourthly, so many kind people were available to push me out of one snow bank and get me going. Fifthly, all alone at the bottom of that huge hill, with my car stuck in a snow bank, I was able to access the internet in my cell phone and summon help! Lastly, the kind, helpful policemen and one tow-truck saved my car and my bacon, because, looking back, I would never have been able to make it up that hill on foot. They would have found my lifeless body in the spring, frozen in a snow bank.

This kind of amazing heavenly supervision goes on all the time for each and every one of us. Of course, this kind of help also begs the question: why do we have to go through these kinds of experiences—but that is a post for another time. Suffice it to say that truly each hair on your head is counted by all of the Angels in heaven, who care for you as no other. Look around at your own lives, my dear Readers, to discover all the ways in which your own Angels care for you.