Of all the “New Age” practices, healing is undoubtedly one of the most sought after. I often wondered why that was. After much research, I came to the conclusion that sometime after 1950, there was a growing disillusionment with “traditional” medicine. Because of a complicated set of rising circumstances,  the face of medicine and patient care was rapidly changing and becoming more institutionalized. Specialization became more prevalent and medicine became more complicated to practice.

Wow! First of all, I apologize for the late update. My life has crashed and burned and I am waiting to rise like the Phoenix into a new and more beautiful existence.

On July 24, my mother passed away suddenly. I found her in her bed when I went in to wake her for breakfast. She was lying peacefully with her hands clasped together. She was looking toward the window on her left side and had a beautiful smile on her face.

I was both relieved that she was no longer having to live the hellish life that had been her existence for the last few years. She had mild to moderate dementia and the terrible arthritis in her back had robbed her of her ability to walk or even toilet herself. 

It was my job to care for her every need, and I did it gladly. If you read my article and blog about poop, you know what i'm talking about. So that was the positive part of her death. But, there is another side, of course. I went into deep grief, tears, feeling torn apart by the memories of her as the perfect mother for me. Each photo I looked at, each item from her closet I touched when we were cleaning out her things, swept me up in waves of grief and sorrow. 

I bounced back and forth between the two for days. I thought I had a visitation where she assured me that all was well and that she had crossed over into the light.

A few days later, in the middle of tne night, I woke up and went into the hallway on my way to the bathroom. My mother there, on the floor. 

She was frightened, didn't know what had happened. She was still in the form of her astral body that acted like her physical body. Her loving husband, was there, trying to catch her attention but she was too confused to see  him. Her dementia had not yet worn off and she was in such a state of agitation that I nearly cried. But, I gathered my wits together, talked to her about what had happened, told her to look "over there" and see her husband trying to connect with her. I called in her favorite angels to help guide her way. 

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE WATCHING THIS VIDEO. YOU MIGHT BE ENRAGED, ANGRY, AND OFFENDED, OR YOU MIGHT BE DELIGHTED. 

This Video is highlights of Christopher Hitchen's life work as a rational thinker and fighter against organized religion from JediJesseS's You Tube channel. You might be offended by the content. You might love the content. Either way, it is powerful stuff.

I am not an atheist, however, I am definitely not for religion. In my opinion, right or wrong, religion is ludicrous and dangerous. Spirituality and spiritual belief, I think, should be personal, not codified with rules and regulations meant to enslave the mind and body and definitely not to be foisted on others as TRUTH. In fairness, many atheists I have known are just as nasty and narrow minded as religious mongers, but I think Christopher Hitchens, like others I admire, including Mark Twain, George Carlin, and to a certain extent, Bill Mahr, was truly on a crusade to crack open the doors of ignorance and fear. I could go on, but not here. Maybe on my blog at Confessions of a Confetti Head.

I found this video to be fascinating, and in many ways enlightening. Keep an open mind or not, that is your right. I put it here because it invokes thinking at the very least.

Love it or hate it,

Anita Burns, Editor

I recently received an email rant about my burger blog, Fractured Foodies Having Fun. It reads: "You are suppose to be "in touch" with the universe and have some sort of connection with spirits YET YOU PROMOTE THE EATING OF ANIMALS!?!?  I do not think you are what you pretend to be if you do not see the correlation!"

The "What you pretend to be..." is referring to, I assume, my being a spiritual teacher and aspirant. Hmmmm. Thought provoking, yet unthinking at the same time, this rant is I think. Oh, sorry, my inner Yoda comes out sometimes. "Back Yoda, Back!"

I was going to reply to Jan's email slam but thought, instead to address it in my Confetti Head blog. And, now I am publishing it here because this is an important issue to some people.

Bad Ju Ju, Vulcans, and Purses on the Floor

As I am writing this, it is Friday, the 13 of January. I hadn't given it much thought until this morning. Following my semi-ritual, I woke up around 6 am or so, opened my I-pad and checked email. Aarrgh, 56 pieces of mail and only 20 "real" ones and of those, only a few I wanted to look at. I'll save my cooking.com, and such for later. Much spam, in spite of spam filters. No, I'm NOT interested in barnyard babes, or helping a Nigerian Prince put millions in my bank account. Next I checked my sales status for ebooks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble—yay! another sale in the UK— then went to Flip, a central place for my Twitter, Facebook, and News. Lots of stuff about Friday the 13th. 

Wow! A whole month has passed since assuming the editor's role for The Messenger. We have made a lot of changes but hopefully kept to the spirit that Joann so lovingly crafted over the last 14 years.

Take a look at the new articles we have added. Some are from familiar writers. Others are from writers never published here before. I think they are thoughtful and inspiring.

So what do I want to say to you this month? Well, Duh! I want to talk about how excited I am about The Messenger. We are diving into the deep end of the pool and having a great time. Canon ball or belly flop we are giving it our all!