This link is broken in two places.  after www. and after .com

http://www. fosters.com /apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091110/GJNEWS_01/711109876

Please pass this info on until she is returned.

The startling turquoise of the sky behind russet and golden leaves made me think of my mother the moment I opened my eyes this morning.

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Mom has been gone for over a decade but the colours of autumn always bring the best of memories.  These colours were of the favorite dress I ever had.  She sewed the dresses like crazy to be done for holiday, one for her, one for me, one for my sister.  The material was crisp, medium plaid with azure and turquoise running with rust, bark, golds, maple, wheat colours.  I think she thought that plaid the loveliest material ever too.

Autumn means to me, Mom at her finest.  She was a vivacious, wild card, yet Martha Stewart-type.  A wild card, period.  Ask the family.  But she was down-to-earth.  The farmer heritage ran through-and-through.

She never stopped harvesting.  Rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, peaches, apples, grapes.  The vegetable garden, her gardens.  I think an acre with everything consolidated.

The best ever, I think, was Mom stealing walnuts from the farmer.  Well, the tree did stand by the road.  The walnuts did fall in the middle of the road.  They did stay there for days on end after they fell.

But every year we stole them.  She rushed in with the back of the car right by those walnuts.  Hurry Hurry.  Out we would jump, us two girls, sometimes our cousins or a friend.  We would throw the walnuts into a box in the trunk and she sped us away.  Us innocent children fearing arrest.

Did I say she was a wild card?  She was a light.  In those moments, she was a light.

Every year we dumped walnuts from the farmer’s tree on our driveway.  She would drive over and over them, crushing off the shells.  Then she wore gloves as she cracked them with a hammer and brick, and we dug the walnut meats out with darning needles.  Glass jars of walnuts were on our shelf all winter.

You know what that meant.  The first batch was chocolate walnut fudge and buttered popcorn.  The beginning of the holiday spree.   Like I said, a wild Martha Stewart, never-ending of baking and decorating.  Those were Mom’s good days.

Turquoise autumn sky.  Dad hauling huge pumpkins to the front yard that she had milk-fed.  Time to deal with the chickens before winter.  Pruning grapes, digging bulbs.  She could wear long sleeves again, she hated short sleeves anyway.  The last chance to get out and see some friends before winter snows kept her in the county.

But mostly, it was all about that dress.

Essa Adams

Essayist, writer, novelist.

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Mature women in women's fiction.

I HAD SWINE FLU BEFORE THEY CALLED IT

I take this very seriously though I am a tongue-in-cheek communicator.

In early February 2009, I got sick.  We are talking really really not well.

It started as tired.  I remember thinking, ‘Why am I so tired every morning?’  I could not think of getting up before ten or eleven even though hubby was home on vacation.  Then my body started to fill with fluid and I wondered if I had congestive heart failure.

Then the Swine Flu permeated my body so I could no longer stay in denial.  I did not know it was H1N1 until long after recovery.  Which was a long way off.  I am pretty convinced it came to me through a Chicago connection who works with hundreds of people each day.  Now that we hear what people experience with the H1N1 virus, I am certain I encountered this way back then.  It was unlike any other flu and I am fifty-two.

FLU PERSONALITIES

Each flu virus is different.  Then, in each person it takes a new approach.  The same but different.  Fever, chills, aches, nausea, loss of appetite.

Yes, intestinal aggravations and vomiting can be a complication of the flu.  But the intestinal symptoms on their own are not really flu because the way I see it….  flu is about a raging infection of the very glands whose job it is to grab the infection and fight it…. with copious discharge of the glands, ultimate bronchial congestion, endless cough to dislodge infectious phlegm from body, consequent breathing difficulty, and even fluid in the lungs.

That is why intestinal complications are referred to as ‘intestinal flu’.  And these are serious as they can cause dehydration and that is most serious of all.  Dehydration is when the body dries up and the infection rages higher.

MY FLU PERSONALITY

My Swine Flu was all about the throat.  Like strep only without the crown-to-the-floor-nailing headache I always used to get with strep before I kicked it for good using my own special home remedy. Perhaps I did not feel the other symptoms at first, except the tired part, because of my natural remedies, I don’t know, can’t call it.  For me, it was the throat.

With this flu, February 2009, my throat was on fire, I could not begin to want to drink water but I forced myself.

THEN THE PHLEGM AND COUGH

Then came the phlegm drainage of the swollen glands in my neck which brought the constant cough.  I wanted to not cough but the cough was never-ending, day and night.  And coughing is to protect us from taking the phlegm into our bodies even deeper, coughing purpose is to get it out.  So I tried to never take anything to stop the cough.  In short, I worked with it.  Drank as much as water as possible to keep the bronchial loose and phlegm thin so I could cough it out.

Not pretty, but the phlegm and undulating infection is what the plague was all about.   If they got through that, the pneumonia was next.

AFTER FLU WATCH FOR PNEUMONIA – THE KILLER KIND

Me, I could not breathe at one point, but we are not there yet. I was at the point of pneumonia when I called the doctor though.

I went to a stupid doctor who could get me in before the weekend.  What is it with me and doctors anyway?  He told me I had a cold.  If I had strep, he did not test.  Just gave me antibiotics which I did not take.  Could he not see I was grey as cement, no air, no oxygen, no nothing left to give to this flu fight.

I left the stupid doctor’s office and went to the natural health store.  Should have gone there first, I realize.   Got more blackberry syrup as an effective phlegm expectorant.  Some cranberry concentrate for the bronchial and breathing, and that helped some but I was in rought shape by then.  Got some teas for nutrition.  Some homeopathics to continue to follow my other symptoms.  Home to try to live.  But I really was having a hard time breathing.

That night during a snowstorm while hubby was at work on midnight shift – yes, he should not have gone that night, we know – I could not breathe well.  I realized the suck-the-life-out-of-me energy going into the cough was taking my air, it was closing in, I was getting less and less air every time, coughing more sporadically.  Asthma like.

I was ready to call an ambulance.  Found a bottle of homeopathic remedy for asthma in my ‘cold and asthma’ tupperware box, thank goodness for organization.  Took four pellets and the cough stopped in twenty seconds.  Done, gone.  Breathing normal.

My throat still hurt like hell.  But I could breathe.  Because now is was all about the oxygen.

I had to use the asthma homeopathic remedy a few more times.  This was a combination I had purchased four years before on a whim, even though I do not clinically have asthma.

RECOVERY – OR NOT

Then it was all about the recovery.  I was wrung out like an old washrag.

Could not walk across the house without gasping.  Dishes wore me out, I was exhausted.  I continued to sleep lengthy hours, forced myself to shower, it was so hard.  That’s what walking pneumonia can do.  I didn’t even have that.

The men from hubby’s work got this too, said they could not walk half a block without sitting down, it was the most debilitating they ever experienced.  It was the most extreme I ever experienced too.

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Hubby, not so much.  He got it and with the homeopathics he used he was able to not feel so much, stay strong and think he was infallible.  When he went in to work with it the guys tried to kill him.

SELF SHIELD – SELF PRESERVE – SELF RESPONSIBILITY

There are many ways to protect yourself from flu, any flu.  I wish I had started earlier, not been wondering so long what was wrong.

1) Colloidal silver – look up Natural Health Solutions Nanosilver and others.  Colloidal silver smothers the bad bacteria, leaving the good bacteria to fight for you.

2) Homeopathic choices are another way, they make the symptoms more subtle while the virus passes through the system… they do not make you well, just stronger.  Get a good homeopath ahead of time.  Homeopathic choices can be given prior to being exposed too, and at first onset if that is what is called for.  Every person is a different candidate for a different choice, homeopaths understand.

3) Keep hydrated.

4)  Do not dry up your cough either.

5) Keep a good asthmatic combination on hand for emergency.  These are available at health stores and online shops.

FLU SHOT

Nope, I did not say do not get a flu shot.  I absolutely will not say that.  Though I will say I would rather go through what I did than risk a flu shot or the new vaccine that is untested.  I did not say do not go to a medical practitioner.  Though I would say I wish my very own practitioner had been around that week.  I will never say what you can take, as I am not a medical practitioner.  I will say this – plan ahead.

Yes, I am just saying….

Be prepared.

Have a plan prior.

Self shield.

Godspeed.

Stay strong.

WOMEN’S FICTION OR MYTH — We must never use dog poop to take out our frustrations on anyone.

A LADY-LIKE ESSAY

First, what to do with the neighbor’s dog poop?

1. Recycle coffee cans for neighborly gifts.   Fill them with dog poop destined for the dump where it acts as compost heat. Of course, when the sun beats down on a coffee can with a plastic lid, the ripeness is overwhelming and you might want to think twice about that lid ever coming off while in your yard.  Deliver it to proper owner.
2. Keep composted cans for our hydrangeas, mix with coffee grinds and cottonseed meal.  Wear an oxygen mask.  Cover fertilizer with decorative gravel or woodchips.
3. Wing dog pile at side of neighbor’s garage. When it sticks you know they might get the idea.

An explanation may be in order. I will try to advocate this fine idea without giving away my brother’s identity.

• When the dog poop does not belong to your dog – that means we can all recognize what comes out of our dog and we find a dog pile in our yard that is not like the other.  This usually happens in a pattern. Neighbor’s dog visits, does business, goes home. Neighbor does not wonder why his dog is constipated. They know full well dog is fine, they can see piles over the fence rotting in your backyard.
• But that’s okay, the neighbors know it will all come back to them. That is because when you go out and scoop your own dog piles you throw their dog piles back over the fence. You used to gingerly drop them over the side into a polite little mountain. But then you just started winging the pile to randomly fall where they may, after all that is the way you find them. One day you have had enough shit and give it a whirl off the shovel. Splat. On the side of the garage it sticks. Oops.
• What would you do? Scrape it off with a long stick? Use your power washer? Leave it? My brother smeared it with the stick, not intentionally, he did feel badly. Then he left it there all summer, seems the neighbors never came to that side of the garage to notice, never missed that pile at all. Finally, I want to belive with all my heart, that my sister-in-law, dear long-suffering woman, wearied of looking at it every evening when she retired to an iced tea on the patio.  Perhaps she hosed it off.  Perhaps bro did.

What to do with your own dog’s poop?

1. Pick up before the lawn crew arrives. We only have the giant-sized to worry about.  Nice tidy poop from eating highly digestible dog food.  We always tred to get every bit, especially before the lawn crew comes to mow.  Still, there was once a pile missed and the youngest guy mowed it.  He’s mowing with a potentially deadly machine, for crying out loud.  How can he miss a rock?  Would he mow a rock?  A Newfie dogpile is not boulder-size, but definitely noticeable.  The lawn crew owner complained because his tractor and trailer and inside his truck was tracked up with dog poop.  Don’t look at me.  I wouldn’t have done it.  If the kid had mowed a rock, he would have worse problems than smeary dog poop.   Now we mow our own lawn.
2. Install a second septic system just for the dogs. This is for townspeople with Newfoundland-sized dogs.
3. Little plastic baggies, turn wrong side out, pick up stuff, turn right side out and zip closed. This is for city dwellers who walk dogs in the street while wearing their career threads.  Biodegradeable plastic is environmentally-correct.
4. Country dwellers. Some fill wheelbarrows and actually use their dog poop on the compost piles that feed the fruit trees. I wouldn’t want it on my vegetable garden, but this is ponderable use of fine energy, at the very least.  Very eco-friendly.  
5. Country dwellers. Throw it onto the farmer’s field at the roadside without the plastic holding bag.  Extremely eco-friendly.  But the farmer might have an opinion.
6. Wait until it freezes then rake it into piles and pick up.  Beginning of September is when it starts at our house.  Hubby tried it a few times.   Oh yes.  The one in charge of these piles is usually identifiable as a husband or teenage son-in-training to be a husband.  Picker-upper must have unfailing hope anda positive attitude.  a)  Must hope for no rain.  b)  Must hope for no leaves on the piles of poop so the unaware woman of the house will not skate through the poop.  c)  Must hope for no leaves on the piles so the woman’s young children will not dive into the leaves and dog poop.  No, we would not want that.  d)  Finally, the person in charge of the piles who decided to let them freeze before scooping must hope for a very short autumn to pull this off.    This only works once a decade really.  Once the visualization of the wife skating free-form through a pile of wet leaves over a few piles of dog poop, well there is no getting that out of your mind.   So the person in charge keeps seeing it happen and there is no hope of it never happening again.  Even in this rare form, it is still the power of attraction.  The Law of Victimization.  The Power of Humour.  Or whatever you want to call it, it’s still your ass.

Essa Adams is a publisher and writer, her latest novel … with two Newfoundland dogs and a second septic for the house …  is published under the penname Thayne Hudson.   A Breath Floats By is available from Amazon, with more information at ESSA Books.   She is author of pet memoirs,  Skunk Medicine: There’s a Skunk in the House! and Other Tail-Raising Stories.  She publishes the Women’s Fiction Blog and Pet Skunk Medicine blog where one will find excerpts, short pet stories, a bright array of essays and rants.

Give yourself a gift.  A paperback novel giveaway with three mature women characters and two gentle giant men.  It is about friendship through the direst circumstances, the reality of love when we realize romance is not enough.

So when you are done reading about mature skin care for women in winter weather, then go to the link at the bottom.

You will be entered in a book giveaway for my novel which was finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards 2009.

Mature women in women's fiction.

Something to read this autumn when you are iced or snowed into your home, luxuriating as your surface cells plump up while you wear your Hydracial Skin Moisture Mask?

I am hoping it is all fiction.  But I keep feeling the signs are, at least for the Northern half of the United States, that winter is going to come on early and with extreme measure.

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Whether the weather concerns are true or false, women do need special care for their skin in drying winter weather.  So many cleansers, face lotions and anti-aging creams  are made with harsh and drying ingredients. 

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Mature women need skin-cracking, drying ingredients in skincare like we need mice hibernating in our toasters.

Long story shortest, Neways skincare products offers various choices and are not made with questionable ingredients.  Nothing harsh, abrasive, drying, toxic.  There is nothing less than premium quality about these highly concentrated products.  I think they are exquisite. Cannot describe how happy my skin has been, and I am fifty-two-ish.

For autumn and winter, I am using Extra Gentle Cleanser, Night Science lotion Resurrecting BioMist, and one of their newer products called Hydracial SkinDefense Daily Moisturizer which is a combination of efforts that are proposed by other Neways skincare.  Hydracial also comes in a complete skin care anti-aging system which can be purchased as one or separately.  Video  http:// www.newaystv.com/english.html

Hydracial Mature Skin Care Anti-Aging System Video

Anti-aging?  We might embrace our grey hair only one at a time then one day flaunt the luxurious silver sheen that is representing wisdom gained and wrinkles earned.  And shine, it should.  We might befriend our extra width and stability.  Dance naked in the sun.

But we still want our skin to radiate, no matter how elderly we become.  Imagine living to one hundred and two with the sweetest, most luminous wrinkles in the world.

And why not?!  Vintage autos that make it past one hundred are admired by all.

Soooo…. ready for the plan?  The other Neways products are Lightning; Circles and Lines; Skin Enhancer; Retention Plus; Imperfection Lotion; Skin Brightener; Wrinkle Drops and Wrinkle Garde.

If  you are considering more than a few of these premium skin care products, reconsider the Hydracial Anti-Aging Skin Care System.   If you are considering injections or surgery, consider this instead too.

Skin cleansers besides the Extra Gentle I chose are… First Impression, TLC Cleansing Lotion and Milky Cleanser for oily skin, drier skin choices.  Resurrection BioMist is for everyone, a supreme body/facial hydration spray made with resurrection plant extract.  Barrier Cream is for environmental protection.  Body lotion, by the way, is their superior Tender Care, all natural with no greasiness.

Winter sun and wind is still sun and wind, only more lively.  Lips?  Lipceuticals. All-weather cream for epidermal moisture level is called Sombrero.  Want to tan without sprays or sun or beds?  Great Tan for streak-free results and no questionable ingredients.

There are so many to choose from.  Keep it simple, just write to me for specifics to your skin challenges and goals.  I will be glad to assist, and I love chatting too, so send you telephone number, I will nveer share it or use it without invitation.  Or find my home office or mobile office numbers on my website at the link to the novel giveaway.

Use me to sponsor you into the company – no fee to join, no monthly requirements, really!!  – and you get my dealer prices.

Interactive Neways Catalog. Skincare begins on page 42.

Interactive catalog on the home page shows retail.  But in the products onsite, I have wholesale prices set for you to know what you would be paying.  http:// essanatural.ineways. com

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Winter Enhancement. We are taught to listen to the wild.

• The animals are getting ready for a long winter’s nap.  Perhaps try to sleep more when they sleep more, it is anti-aging serum supreme.
• Ducks migrated early, seems so.  Try to get to the stores and gatherings earlier and leave earlier, rest more.
• Robins fluttered out of the upper Midwest much earlier than usual.  We could try fluttering instead of charging toward our goals, give ourselves extra time to reduce stress.
• Deer have been deeper in the forest than ever, we don’t see them lately.  Perhaps we can duck down and read a good book unnoticed for a time.
• The Farmer’s Almanac is calling for a cooling, not warming.  Maybe we are going to need some extra barrier cream and the gentlest cleansers we ever used because cold means dry, harsh, extreme… it means skin-cracking, lip-splitting conditions.

I remember being in my twenties and going through the itching, splitting and crackling because I did not know any better.  Now I do.  I have premium mature skin products.  Email or call me to help you get what you need.

See what the novel is about here.

Link to the novel giveaway is below.  Remember, brown button.

http://www.essanatural.com/silk-hair-care-products.html

Dreamwork compared to dream interpretation is very personal.

You are best to not slack on giving your own personal dream understanding the utmost priority, versus giving over your discernment to another who is dream analyzing, especially when they are using the new dream software or dream dictionary.

It’s all in the dream understanding.  There are so many avenues in sacred dreamland.  And dreamland is sacred, a time to converse with our support system.  A time to visit our friends who we never are able to speak with, some who we no longer know where they are.  A time to visit those who crossed over.  To solve issues we face.  To explore our awareness of a coming change in life.

I am a dream intuitive and dream guide.  I also do my share of dreamwork traveling, another avenue altogether.  Always have done so.  I deal with the sacred dreamland and enough dreamwork to occupy me day and night.

I am Essa aka Thayne Hudson.  As a new age writer, I play with the words about ‘the breath that floats by odor from dreamland sent’ — the first line of James Russell Lowell’s poem which my dream psychic novel is based on.  I don’t want to smell the odor of cigarette smoke or lilac perfume or spray starch from a white shirt or anything that tells me I am not really alone when it seems I am.  God only gives us what we can handle, right.  Right.  And I don’t want ghosts or spirits to deal with, please.  I’ll just do the dreams.

Yes, like the woman in my novel, I do work the dreamland.  Sometimes it is tiring.  When I awaken I know I have been somewhere but cannot usually make a connection where I traveled.

What is dreamwork for one is not dreamwork for another.

Some of us do dreamwork in order to remember and fix a problem.  Others dreamwork because they are born to carry messages.  Still this all comes back to dream interpretation and perspective.  This is why I seldom like to really give a dream interpretation though I do share what I feel is best.

For me, I feel waves and flashes all day of the memories I cannot touch, they are so fleeting I cannot give the full dream memory a single world to evaluate.  And when I close my weary eyes at night the memory of the dream floods back like another life.  But the deal is I cannot attempt to remember.  I must simply float away with the dream from where I left off.  If I open my eyes or try to remember, the dream is gone again and I still have not one word to give it a face or place in the waking world.

Leaves me thinking of Demi More in Passion of Mind (2000) when she lives one life by day and when she sleeps her soul lives the other life.  There is no rest.  She does not know if there is a real life and a dream life, to her they are both real, very real.  At least she remembered her dreams.  Was she traveling or not?  I won’t ruin the movie, it is a must see if you are into metaphysical and new age and reincarnation romances, fiction or nonfiction, and soul mates and soul groups and parapsychology.  Takes one to know one.

I know I have traveled when asleep.  Traveled to sit in someone’s kitchen while their terminally ill husband tried something hopeful I told them about that might help their recovery because I was concerned about them, and I know I was there though I was asleep in my bed.  I have been asleep in my bed but traveled to bring a basket of offerings to a person on their deathbed.  Traveled to check on my family when concerned.  To visit loved ones when I could not see them again.  To find my daughter when she was gone from me.  Traveled to a soul mate who is living in a different dimension right now.

This is all dreamwork of a different meaning, the traveling to do for.

Time travel of one sort, I guess it is, and traveling is all a real part of our lives now, and perhaps always has been.  Some embrace and some do not want to know or enact the travel.  Just like I don’t want to smell the odor from dreamland sent, meaning the ghosts or spirits I cannot see.  And I don’t want to see them either, no I do not.

Hopefully not confusing –

Now to travel when asleep, that is not the same as the dream travel.   The travel when asleep dreamwork is like a little errand and then one comes back to the body.  The dream travel dreamwork is a story, a life, a job almost.  I must sleep to go to my job.  I must connect.  And the dreams are not always for me though they do help me grow spiritually.

Then there is the dreamwork that people want to do do offer themselves a greater spiritual perspective, to explore their souls, their soul contracts, their past lives, their present lives.

So I do a bit of the dream travel.  I also make a few connections by dream traveling when aspeel to help people who need some extra connection.  And I do a lot of the dreamwork guidance that helps people do their own dreamwork.  A dream counselor of sorts.  I usually find the people I work with would like to use my experience as a flower essence consultant too.  Flower essences help people tap into their dream work and dream understanding for their own dream interpretation.

And that is what I do.

I work with many clients who are terminally ill, and I work with people just exploring their lives to the fullest extent of their ability…. people facing life challenges with all avenues we are given spiritually, emotionally and physically.  I love my work.

When I finally gave into the dreamwork –

One day I realized I sometimes seemed to be connecting with the dreams and needs of other people… their answers for their concerns and puzzle pieces of life were being given – gifted – to me.  I was then able to connect their dreams with the answers.  I could help others in this way, simply because I just knew something I didn’t really know.  That is a dream intuitive, to just know.  Like a psychic.  Only a dream psychic.

Who were these people I was dreaming for then?  Were they part of my soul group, a widely diverse group?

I knew the person when they came to me.  I just knew.  The meaning of their dreams were apparent to me, I could if only I would interpret the dream though I prefer to guide them to answers or to assure them if that is what is needed.

My assurance is not just the ‘oh, it will all work out.’  Instead, I can tell them what they have going for them and tell them when I am given a piece of knowledge they do not need to continue to search for and they can rest.

I am in awe of the dreams and connections of others.  Their dreams are so beautifully astounding!

No, I don’t get that much rest.  I am awakened at all hours with the piece of someone’s puzzle.  But at least it is not a ghost or an odor from dreamland like my character faces in A Breath Floats By.  I’ll let her deal with those.  We all need to know what would happen if I were to smell the odor or feel the hair prickle on my neck.  I yell and order them out of my life.  Yes, I prefer the dream connection.

I asked myself, ‘Shouldn’t I just be a new age writer? Just play with concepts and words?  Be a holistic guide, a flower essence therapist?’  ‘Am I supposed to be doing this? Getting involved with other people on such an intimate level, spending so much of my time on the issues and challenges of other people?’  ‘Should I not be distanced from other people?’

Then when I was forty-something and literally nearly asleep, the question about dreamwork vs. dream interpretation was answered.

I am not overly involved.  I am doing this for other people.  Like a nurse is doing her work for others, a fireman, a policeman, a teacher, a social worker, a home builder, a designer, a cook, a wine maker, a real estate salesperson, a gardener, a farmer.  They give their days and nights willingly to help others, to do for them, to become intimately involved if only for a few minutes.  And I am able to do the same.

That was when I knew I was all right.  I finally opened the door to my dreamwork of helping others with their dreamwork.  I don’t give people all their answers.  I offer dream guidance for them to do dream work in their own dream understanding.   I decided to be hospitable.  To entertain through conversation, to open the door to what I had to offer and not hide in the back of the house.

I just decided to open the door.

It was not that I thought the people with the dreams were not all right.  I thought I was not all right.  I thought I was lacking in ability to offer a real value, I thought I was overly involved, that perhaps I was overstepping into their life and leaving something out of mine.

But this gift of understanding dreams, it is open to share and now I do.

Fear?

The dreaming woman in the reincarnation romance – new age novel, A Breath Floats By: An Illusion for the Soul….. she brings her dream intuitive gift to the 21^st century and is asked to share her life with others, but she is afraid because she must often commune with spirits who have something to share.  She is frightened of the odor of dreamland sent – that is the second line of the poem by James Russell Lowell.  She is so terrified and she will not fulfill her sacred contract yet again.  It has cost her too many lifetimes of persecution and loss, horrifying circumstances that leave her quaking at the prospect of being ‘found guilty’ again.

Is this what I, as a writer, am afraid is a possibility for me?  To be found out by those who will judge or not accept me or even persecute me or torture me and kill my body?

I must admit I do have concerns and fears.  But I am in the new era, the more accepting, less fearful era now.  I can be open now, surround myself with the few who know and love me wholly.   I am okay.  What I am gifted to offer is all right, it is good.  Very good.  There were dreamers in the Bible.  Now that was dreamwork!

And I believe I have lived this before, over and over again.  And I am surrounded by those who support me.  Because…..

…..sometimes a breath floats by me, an odor from Dreamland sent, which makes the ghost seem nigh me of a something that came and went… of a life lived somewhere, I know not, in what diviner sphere.  A something too vague, could I name it, for others to know:  As though I had lived it and dreamed it, as though I had acted and schemed it long ago.

James Russell Lowell’s reincarnation story in the poem The Twilight is about those who supported him and longed for him.  The romance of life, the connections we are embraced with when we think we are alone and the person of our soul memory comes to speak to us in the sleeping dream.

Who whispers to you?  To me?  That is the romance of life.

What work do our dreams bring to our life?  What gifts do our dreams bring forward into our living and waking work?  That is the love of life.  God is love and in this we are kept connected.  Sacred dreamland.

Sacred dreamland brings forward stories we are to write, longings we are to search out.  That is the romance of life really.  The dreamwork.

I am a dream guide, a dream intuitive.

I do not believe in free dream interpretations.  Do not believe dream interpretations serve you best.  You need to open more fully to find your own answers.  You need to do the dreamwork for yourself.  I can guide you to do this if you are feeling sort of lost in your process.

I share my time and energy with you, you share yours with me through a payment of $50 for the first contacts to get your work started and $10 each one thereafter.

The flower essence consultations for dreamwork has a similar set price.  Please visit the site for more information.

These services I offer are more of a guidance and hope service.

• I will work closely with you
  
• listen to your dreamwork
  
• guide you with suggestions to get closer to your own dream understanding, your personal dream interpretation
  
• send you personal messages just written for you
  
• articles I have written
  
• suggest methods for finding your answers
  
• tell you where I think you can make changes in touching your dreams in a closer reality
• and I may have a dream message to share with you at some point.  We won’t bet on it, but I may already be waiting for you to bring your information to me because I have a piece of your puzzle.
  

That is dreamwork guidance.

My promise —

• Whatever you share with me will not be analyzed by a dream analysis or dream interpretation software program.
  
• Your conversation via email with me will be a person-to-person exploring of your dreamwork as I support you in many ways to find your answers.

Please email with your dream then and we shall see where it takes us. Whether you are using flower essences for your dreamwork or not, you can use the email contact on my flower essences website.

Once you email your dream I will send you the email link to send me the payment for the service I offer.  There is no set amount, whatever you choose to send will be accepted and we will begin.

If you would like to work through your dreams using flower essence therapy for dreamwork, please read more at that website, see below.

Thank you for considering.

Essa Adams

Please use the email contact at my flower essences website.  Thanks!

Flower Essences and Your Dreamwork

Dream psychic - dream book - metaphysical fiction

ESSA Books – Dream Psychic – Dream Book

Reincarnation romance - Reincarnation fiction

I chose my reincarnation novel title for it’s subtlety.  A subtle and suggestive title that makes you look over your shoulder.  Or afraid to look over your shoulder.  *_* But not in a horrifying sort of way.

Reincarnation romance fiction does not necessarily need to be horrifying, it can be enlightening and uplifting.  A calm gentle story about spiritual correctness.

So what portrays a spiritually-correct reincarnation romance about a soul group who are at odds with the way their lives turned out?

If I decided to restructure my new age novel title what would I say?  It is not only about reincarnation of Essenes from the lifetime on Earth of Jesus, but also about a dream interpreter and a psychic and death doula.   A broad scope of personalities.

I would use the words reincarnation or metaphysical somewhere in the subtitle at least.  Romance or Essenes.  Indigo adults. Soul group or soul mate.  Psychic, intuitive or mind reader.  Dream something.

But now it is titled, A Breath Floats By: An Illusion for the Soul.  What does that mean?  Not quite descriptive unless one is looking for a novel about ghosts.  And yes, it is about ghosts in a sense.  Spirits who are at rest but still have a few loose ends to tie up for someone else.  Nothing as dramatic as Ghost Whisperer though the novel, at least,  was written before that drama was aired and of that I am proud.

But the book is mostly about the connections between lives in one dimension to lives in another dimension – whether these lives are the same or reincarnated, lived at the same time in difference places or lived from a basic reincarnation point-of-view.  And it is all about perspective.

The title of a reincarnation book could shout reincarnation, yes?  But I liked the subtle haunting suggestion of the woman’s greatest fear.  The breath floating by.  Which is one of my greatest fears actually.  But whew –  I don’t have to live it.  Never say never.

Back to titles of metaphysical fiction.  The only word that seems to make a statement that is of the real metaphysical recipe is soul.

Everyone wants to know about the soul, the soul group, soul purpose, soul contract, soul awakening, soul rebirth.  We all want to help our soul in making this lifetime worth the living, if not for ourselves then for someone else.

The title  echoes from a reincarnation poem.  James Russell Lowell.  Author.  Poet.  The poem title is The Twilight.  My novel title is ‘A Breath Floats By’ which is first line of this poem – imagine what does that mean?  To be in the room or on the lawn in the deep twilight, alone, but then you are not alone.

A breath floats by, an odor from dreamland sent which makes the ghost seem ‘nigh me of a something that came and went.

No, we are none of us alone though some feel the breath of the other souls and some would rather not know.  I am one, I don’t want to know.  When I have felt that ‘breath’ that floats by I have usually yelled and ordered them away.  I just don’t want to know.  I want to feel protected by my God, to feel that there is someone who is between me and that veil.

Reincarnated soul cluster of Essenes now Indigo

The dreaming woman in the reincarnation romance – new age novel, A Breath Floats By: An Illusion for the Soul, she brings her dream intuitive gift to the 21^st century and is asked to share her life with others, but she is afraid because she must often commune with spirits who have something to share.  They are not evil, they mean no harm, they are not even frightening like most dramas would portray.  But she is frightened of the odor of dreamland sent.  She is so terrified and she will not fulfill her sacred contract yet again.  Besides the terror of being in touch beyond the veil, ther is the reality of what humans can do to one another when they are afraid.  Persecution.  Her sacred dreamwork has cost her too many lifetimes of persecution and loss, horrifying circumstances that leave her quaking at the prospect of being ‘found guilty’ again.

Is this what I, as a writer and dream intuitive and flower essence consultant and holistic guide, am afraid is a possibility for me?  Being involved in everything esoteric, everything vague but very real to me…. this leaves me vulnerable to others.  I must admit concerns.  But I am in the new age of the old age era, the more accepting, less fearful era now.  I can be open now, surround myself with the few who know and love me wholly.  I am okay.  What I am gifted to offer is all right, it is good.  Very good.  There were dreamers in the Bible.

And I believe perhaps I have lived this before, over and over again.  That perhaps I am surrounded by those who support me.  Because….. like in The Twilight by James Russell Lowell…..

…..sometimes a breath floats by me, an odor from Dreamland sent, which makes the ghost seem nigh me of a something that came and went… of a life lived somewhere, I know not, in what diviner sphere.  A something too vague, could I name it, for others to know:  As though I had lived it and dreamed it, as though I had acted and schemed it long ago.

James Russell Lowell’s reincarnation story in the poem is about those who supported him and longed for him.  The romance of life, the connections we are embraced with when we think we are alone and the person of our soul memory comes to speak to us in the sleeping dream.

Who whispers to you?  To me?  That is the romance of life.  The romance of reincarnation books both fiction and nonfiction.

Dream from reincarnation theories are based on every perspective imaginable, we are all unique, all paths unique and blessed for our finest answers.

You are interested in reincarnation philosophy for a reason.  Perhaps you love reincarnation novels because you are opening to a connection awaiting you, do you think so?

If your dreams are speaking to you and you would like to explore reincarnation possibilities, consider dreamwork with or without flower essence support.  Also consider past lives consulting by using flower essences.  I offer all three choices.

Please understand, I do not believe free dream interpretations serve you best.  You need to open more fully to find your own answers.  You need to do the dreamwork, soulwork and pastlife exploration for yourself.

I can guide you to do this if you are feeling sort of lost in your process.

• I will listen to your dreamwork, stories and soul-searching
  
• guide you with suggestions
  
• send you personal messages or articles I have written
  
• suggest methods for finding your answers
  
• tell you where I think you can make changes in touching your dreams in a closer reality
• and I may have a dream message to share with you at some point
  

My promise —

• Whatever dreams you share with me will not be analyzed by a dream interpretation software program.
  
• Your conversation via email with me will be a person-to-person exploring of your dreamwork, soulwork and past life considerations as I support you in many ways to find your answers.

Please email and we shall see where it takes us. Whether you are using flower essences for your dreamwork or not, you can use the email contact on my flower essences website.

I share my time and energy with you, you share yours with me through a payment of $50 for the first contacts to get your work started and $10 each one thereafter.

Thank you for considering.

Essa Adams

Please use the email contact at either my ESSA Books or flower essences website.  Thanks!

Flower Essences and Your Past Lives Soulwork

Reincarnation romance - Reincarnation fiction

ESSA Books Reincarnation Book – Reincarnation Reading – Reincarnation Romance – Reincarnation Fiction – New Age Fiction

The toll booth –

What was it our parents always said about having quarters for phone calls? Well, you know where this going.

Right up there with the problems in the United States economy is the unmanned tollbooth. I do not like them, they too are eating away at our economy, just like computerized checkouts. I will not use an unmanned anything. Give me a person with a job.

Let’s talk how insane this is on the personal level, really.

Driving from Wisconsin along the west side of Chicago, alongside suburbia-something is all I know. An icy evening, dark at four o’clock.

Speed passage lanes – confusing as they are – pull me off the speedway and get me lost. Keep me from paying my tolls.  Bad enough there was construction and narrow winding lanes along cement walls for forty miles. By the fourth toll booth, I had it figured out, just keep driving, pay later.

I knew that because I missed tollbooth number one but stopped at the second tollbooth, paid for that toll and said, “I missed a toll back there.” He wouldn’t take my extra fare. Simple enough arrangement, but no, I was given a pink slip with instructions to pay online. I played dumb. “What does pay online mean? Put my credit card out there online?” His eyes rolled. No way, he wasn’t taking the money.

I have to pay online. So I try but the form wants to know what tollbooth. I don’t know. There were three, no less. Maybe five. It was a long happy retreat, I was tired and snowed upon and cold. Hungry, homesick, and confused. The night was dark. So I do not know nor can I figure out using the map just where I missed those tolls.

Besides, the state in question wants my license plate number and driver’s license number and social security and credit card information. I’m afraid to go back to Illinois. Hell, I’m afraid to drive around Indiana, it’s too close to Chicago. And I’m afraid to drive in my home state of Michigan because they know how to find me here. I have become a recluse because I missed three or five tolls for what?? Fifty cents each in Illinois. But you know what I am more afraid to do, that’s send my social security and credit card and address and date of birth and driver’s license number and license plate number over the internet to pay Illinois a couple bucks in tolls.

Gets worse! I get off at a toll booth in Indiana to visit my brother.

I have always loved the toll booth scenery there because it is like landing from the speedway into the silent pine forest. I remember just a few months ago telling the man that he had a lovely quiet job there in the middle of nowhere.

I remember thinking how he could sit and read or sing all day, play his guitar between semis and cars stopping to pay.

And I remember thinking how desolate he was there in the pine forest right off the edge of insanity with civilization howling past. Thinking how I wouldn’t want his job for anything.

Anyway…… I get off the speedway to go to my brother’s home, a not-so-late black-out evening, a halfway point over-nighter on my way home.

The toll booth was closed. Except I still have to pay. The nice man is gone? I think this is not cool. Was he on vacation, laid off?

A computer was doing his job. Gate is down and this time I must pay.

I am expected to pay seventy-five cents into a jackpot slot. I was going to give the nice man a dollar bill. The single dollar bills were in my wallet, the ones I had been attempting to use to pay the Illinois tolls.

But the computer only accepted nickels, dimes, quarters, or credit cards.

My purse is in the back.

My credit card is not a credit card, it is a debit card anyway. And would the computer confiscate it because I had no other money to pay?

Really, I had no other money to pay. Just my dollar bills, a fifty or two, no coins of silver. I dig through my wallet and find a nickel and a dime with many pennies, then drag my purse to the front and dig out two more silver coins.  Still need fifty-five cents. But I’m getting somewhere.

You know what though?  I’m scared. I am really scared. And ticked off. This dilemma was a perfect enraging spice of energy for an otherwise perfect day.

I am somewhere between a college campus with no people and a prison five miles away.  Where would an escapee head to get the heck out of Dodge but the nearest tollbooth where someone has to stop thus can be carjacked or even killed for the car. That is not a question.

Then there are the speedway people who pull up behind me, like the one who did. It’s him and me. Him waiting, me trying to get my money in the slot and go. Me with my window down watching all sides of my vehicle. Please don’t get out and try to help me, mister, I will definitely crack the gate off with my Denali, don’t think I can’t. But he waited. A nice man I am sure, but I was scared.

I dig through the pockets of my coat and find a quarter. I dig through the dark recesses of the cup holders filled with pennies and finally find silver, one looks Canadian.

In the end the little computer booth doesn’t want the last two coins, it must have taken me too long and my time expired. I was bashing the front of the machine with my hand to get the coins to make a difference in its silver-consumed little computer brain. Several bashes and it worked. The gate went up. I went on.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels sold the Indiana Tollway to a consortium, the firms Cintra of Spain and Macquarie of Australia, which gave Indiana $3.8 billion. Funds the state uses for roads.  Funds that impress the state voters to reelect him for his audacious ability to keep the state in the black.  He is getting a copy of this experience. Online, in print and through every congressperson and council person he has working with him.

One speed pass lane on a speedway is enough, we are supposed to conserve fuel, driving faster is not cutting it. Autos do not need to thrust through at six and ten lanes wide.

A tollbooth needs a toll person.  A security guard would be a nice touch. Two or more jobs right there, depending on location and time of night.

People need the jobs. Travelers need the people.

If you read Gracie – the Fake Christmas Ladybug last December, you may wonder what happened to her now that she would becoming out of hibernation.  Well, Gracie, it seems, dehydrated while in the tissue-lined envelope in my desk drawer.  I don’t know what those fake lady bugs drink whey are stuck in the wall sleeping all winter, but they must depend on some sustenance.

I don’t mean to sound callous, though I know I do.  But I tried to save her.  I nearly ruined my marriage saving her.  The duct tape is still there to remind me.  And yes, the plastic film is still on all these windows.  Here where we live the plastic is needed to break the freezing wind gusts from the lake until the end of April.  We do uncover some key windows for listening to spring bids in the garden and letting a breeze through the house on warmer days.

And yes, there are many of Gracie’s little sisters trapped in the plastic, some died already.  I feel terrible, really I do.  But if there were any real lady bugs in there – the kind with only five or less spots, I would get them out and take them to a brush pile in the garden, really I would.

Gracie’s story link is on the right menu if you are inclined to know the whole terrible scene.

Omg – I love when the muse is rockin’ when i wake up in the morning and i have to kick it all out before i get to do anything at all. Especially after only three hours sleep. Loosens me up.

This is an original post for my women’s fiction short stories and essays blog – a blog that includes the lies we are told as women in the American culture, for the most part. But I have readers worldwide, so you tell me, do you get the same cruppie as we?

You know the cruppie lies and misconceptions where we feel like we are gorgeous peaches then find out we are considered toadstools, poisonous mushrooms, somehow defective.

Did you hear the one about the peaches and oranges? I love Paulo Coelho’s mind and heart. He has many parables on his Amazon blog. See his book page for The Alchemist, scroll down to the blog.

Anyway, he told the one about the lovely fruit.

An old man sold fruit on the side of the road, beautiful expensive fruit that he praised. He made a fine living enjoying selling peaches and oranges to travelers.

His educated son came from the city and said, father, don’t you realize times are tough and people cannot buy this expensive fruit now. The man was not able to read, so no, he had not known the economy was down. I guess no one was complaining.

He bought cheaper fruit, reduced his prices and promotional efforts, didn’t feel he could praise the new fruit. Times got tough for him too.

Ladies, I’ve got to bring it on home.

Did you hear the one about the plush girl who just reached puberty?  A budding young woman with clouds of curls, clear blue eyes, and sun-kissed cameo skin, treasuring a figure she moved gracefully.

She was fourteen years old and lived in the country. Her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents were all plush, soft people who worked hard on their hobby farm with organic gardens. She sold fruit and vegetables to their community. They treasured their free time, went biking, canoeing, and played backgammon instead of owning a television. Seldom went to the city, then only museums or to visit plush city cousins. A saving grace… an American woodworking journal was their main magazine.

The plush girl’s cousin was one year younger. She visited every summer. This visit the cousin brought a one year subscription of an American teenager magazine. Three magazines from her friend’s older sister’s pile. And a magazine from the friend’s mother’s women issues collection.

They spent two weeks reading at bedtime – weight, body image, self acceptance, diet, food choices, health. Stop eating that junk or you will die of high cholesterol and diabetes, you must eat this and be thin to be safe from fat diseases. Fear-factors in health and mental disorders if one did not have self acceptance. Frizzy hair? Tame those curls. Are your legs too knobby or too fat – if so here is how to dress. Do you think your nose is too big, it’s never too big, love yourself. Do you worry you are different from other teens – just love yourself and embrace their differences too and if you are fat take the obesity challenge together and you will all be so much happier. Will he like you even when you look like that – if not here is how to convince him. If he does not like you don’t waste the cute just be the best you can and be yourself and be sure to be thin and move on. The ultimate question. The pretty, slender girl’s photograph over the hornet-target, confidence-zinger, self-doubt-builder caption, “Do you think you are fat?”

And the plush girl wilted.

We know the ropes.

But I cannot in fair conscience leave the plush girl wilted.

After all, we have naïve young women in their teens reading this blog about the lies we are told. We must tell them the truth. Help me out with other scenarios. Your comments are safe, I moderate all comments on my blogs so the haters and fearful ones cannot sting you.

Scenario #1 Plush girl turned skinny/plush/skinny/extraplush/ almost skinny/extraextraplush as a woman. Struggled, fought, kicked, cried and screamed her self-hatred all the way up to three hundred pounds in every effort to chisel svelte from her plush body. Then she got mad. Quit dieting. Embraced her normal food desires, normal exercise of canoeing and biking, gardening and walking. She ended up at an extra-plush two hundred twenty-five pound. The extra fifty pounds she carried now are because she dieted, so it is pretty much a given that her metabolism is screwed for a few more years at least. Oh, and she gave birth to three lovely children so that usually changes everything, except for some women with those-kind-of-genes who remain svelte after birthing their third child twenty-two years ago.

Scenario #2 Someone told her that she was lovelier to them than any of the slender girls in the magazines. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She bought it and lived happily ever after.

Scenario #3 Plush lush girl had the stamina of an ox and verve of a warrior goddess. She woke up the next morning with resolve that she would not allow these freaking insane publishers and writers change her life. She looked in the mirror and could see her nose was a little big, it matched her plush face just fine. Her knees were a little cushiony but they held up her lush body and made for sturdy walking and ladder climbing. She could dance the rump off a cow, canoe a wild river, bike up a mountain. Her frizzy hair, when spirited with H2O, regrouped into the halo of curls framing her round shoulders to give her the beauty and balance every portrait artist dreams they will paint.Her bosom was ripe like the fruit in the orchard… she read that somewhere in one of her plush great-grandfather’s poetry books.

Plush lush girl exhaled. Then she smiled at the truth in the mirror.

MIRRORS

From Paulo Coelho’s Blog: “Mirrors are the attribute of vanity, and represent the narcissistic solitude of the vain. On the other hand, they can also represent the knowledge of oneself, the truth of oneself.”

“Paulo Coelho is a firm believer of Internet as a new media and is the first Best-selling author to actively support online free distribution. See http://piratecoelho.wordpress.com .”

Essa Adams at Women’s Fiction Blog http://essaadams.wordpress.com supports the use of copy from this blog, just link it back to the blog. I am not a bestseller yet, need all the friends and link support you will give. Appreciated! Peace to you and yours.

300 Free Novels — Show me the connection and I will send you a free ebook, A Breath Floats By. Author Thayne Hudson. I am giving way 300 each month in 2009 to anyone who connects this blog to a promotional source like their Facebook, twitter, del.icio.us, myspace, RSS my Amazon.com blog to somewhere out there, and more. Go for it. Then show me where by using a comment. I moderate comments and remove the link so you stay anonymous. Want a free ebook? Link away.