Psychic Vibrations

Yesterday I was talking on the phone to the executive director of an organization for which I do a lot of work. She said something remarkably perceptive about something she couldn’t have known. Amazed, I said, “Wow, you must be psychotic.” To make matters worse, I went out of control laughing and couldn’t stop. Maybe my best Freudian slip ever.

Speaking of psychic, last weekend I went with Teej to the Nevada City Psychic Fair. Actually, I think it was a Faire. Have a look around.

I got totally busted while trying to the following picture, which is one reason it’s blurry. Would you want to be on the receiving end of that guy’s look? He’s doing something called “deeksha.” It looks dangerous.

There were some interesting services and products.

The best were the Cherry Hot Packs:

My two favorite things:

• A polished pale-wood table, long and slender, and hollow underneath where it was strung like a harp. For ten dollars you could lie on it for ten minutes, while attending metaphysicians gave your soul a cleanse. Of course I had to try it. A woman sat by my shoulder and, reaching under me, strummed. That not only produces music, but sets the table to vibrating. At the same time she chanted in my ear — a surprisingly pretty voice — incomprehensible syllables except for, at the very end, the single word, “sweeeeeeet.” Throughout this her partner sat at my head and held his hands over whatever chakra’s up there, sending good ondas (that’s the one Spanish word I learned in Costa Rica: vibes).
• The jovial psychic tarot reader Auntie-Someone. I picked her out from an ocean of new-age (or as Michael says, “newage,” to rhyme with “sewage”) practitioners. She was the only one who didn’t have that creepy “I love everything” look, so I plunked down my fifteen dollars. She didn’t ask my name or even what question I might have. “It almost always happens that I answer people’s questions even when they don’t ask,” she told me later. And she did. I admit, I was awestruck by some of what she said. These weren’t your garden-variety, one-size-fits-all observations, like “sometimes people don’t understand you” or “if you build it, they will come.” She did a remarkably better job at describing my current situation than I could have. And she said I’m going on a big trip in October and November, which is when I’ve been planning to go to Nepal.
  
  She also forecast that I will soon meet a man with an accent: someone younger… and possibly — shorter? Should I go back to Guatemala? In the meantime, I’ve been entertaining myself all week by looking twice at every gas station attendant, delivery man and 7-11 cashier I meet.

I got to see my wonderful friends Syd and Jesse, and once again forgot to ask their permission to put their pictures here. So use your psychic abilities to imagine them. And as you’ve probably already divined, it was a pretty day.

Back at the Rancho after the fair(e), I showed Teejie the fabrics I’d brought from Guatemala for us to share. Here’s one possible use.

Here’s Stella in my car. She’s happy because she’s looking at Lulu, whom she hadn’t seen for a long time. And here’s Lulu, standing in front of the dorms that were evacuated a few days ago because explosives were found in one of the rooms.