“If you’re never going to die, you don’t need this book”

I am encountering more groups the longer I practice medium ship. Several times now I have reached teenagers who talk about being in a group learning scenario near the earth with other deceased teens, and they learn and help each other. Recently I met a deceased couple, parents of my living client, who are helping older people who die with no beliefs in the afterlife adjust and get started. It is most reassuring that there are all those on the other side of the veil that are helping.

Your experiences with the deceased | No Comments »

Dear Friends,

On Christmas Eve my husband and I went to a friend’s house for dinner. Our host was a man who’s parents had recently died, and the other guest was an old friend- I had known both her parents before they died.

At one point, I looked at my girlfriend and said: “It is so good to see you again”, which kind of spooked her as it was out of context with the conversation. But I felt like I was seeing her for the first time,. so enhanced was my vision and so detailed and vivid was the way I was seeing her face.

Later I found myself studying the host’s hands as he cooked our next course, and that feeling of super enhanced vision of my surroundings came over me once again. It me a while to realize what was happening.

It felt similar to what I had happened at my friend Dotte’s funeral in Florida a few years ago. Several times I felt Dotte looking out my eyes, as if she was “borrowing” my eyes and ears to be with her family in a more tangible way. You could say I was channeling her, but I like to think of it as simply sharing my physical body with a deceased loved one. At one point in her reception I went up to her father, hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, looking right into his eyes and said: Dotte loved you so very much, he looked back into my/her eyes and said that he loved her as well. I think we both knew something a bit different was occurring.

Since Christmas I have been spending several days a week with my 91 yr old Dad at his home as he was in a health crisis. My mother died in that house in 2003. I always feel her there. For the past month I have been having that enhanced sensory experience again, as if I am seeing the house and watching the sunset through her eyes- or she through mine. Also, I seemed to be acutely hearing the wild bird songs.  I believe I was lending my eyes and ears to Mom.

I am finishing this letter April 4th. Yesterday was my Dad’s funeral. While I am willing to share my senses with him, he had quite a sweet tooth. Hopefully I won’t gain any weight!

Thanks and Godspeed,
Gretchen

PS, I’ve been told that the animals share like this, that from time to time one of my deceased horses will come into the horse I am riding to feel me once again. It is a nice thought that the pets we have lost get another chance to snuggle with us through our living pets.

Blog, trance readings | 2 Comments »

Hi Everyone,

I’ve got some great stories from readings I’ve done since Choices In The Afterlife was published. I decided to do a recurring newsletter to those of you that have shared your email address with me. If you would rather not get this mailing please let me know and I will delete your address. Most of what I will be writing about are firsts for me- in other words I am still learning from the deceased. I can never predict what is going to happen in any reading, that is for sure.

I will begin with a very recent reading.

J. is 19, and died this year of natural causes. My living client for this reading was his girlfriend of many years.

I usually ask one or two questions of the deceased, having to do with the manner of their death and who greeted them.

When I asked J. who greeted him I kept getting the word Uncle. The young woman said there was no deceased uncle, that his mother was a foster child and didn’t know her parents, J.’s biological father was unknown, so there were no grandparents on either side to greet him. J. His mother had no siblings that had predeceased J., but he was adamant to me that it was his Uncle was his greeter. I suggested to my living client that perhaps this was a man who was LIKE an uncle to J., and there was no one she could think of.

When I pressed J. on the issue he began to describe his Uncle, as kind of a seedy character who drank and smoked, but who was sweet and kind underneath all that.

My client gasped- yes, that was his Uncle all right.

His mother’s brother, his Uncle was the one that found J. after he died.

So if we define greeter as the person or people who inform you that you are dead, we have to define J.’s Uncle as his greeter. J. said that he had stayed in his body mentally until his Uncle came and then he understood that he had died and got up out of his body.

I have never before heard of a greeter being a living person (person still in physical that is), so this is a first for me, and a wonderful expansion of the concept we have of the all important role of the greeter in our own death transitions.

Thanks for the attention to this and if you want to blog with me please go to HowSpiritWorks.com and post a comment there.

My warmest wishes to you,

Gretchen Vogel

Choices Publishing

Keene, NH

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Several years ago a beloved Siamese cat of mine was ripped to shreds in my garden by some stray dogs. That day I had to drive my in-laws to a Doctors appointment, of course I couldn’t stop crying. When I told them what had happened my mother in law said, it was just a cat and to get over it.
The other day I did a reading for a young woman who’s boyfriend of 4 years died of natural causes. They had planned a life together, and now her life has disappeared. The world will never give her the respect of a grieving widow. She will not have his Social Security, she will not be able to have her address as Mrs, …all this to cope with at the age of 19. I hope she never experiences anyone saying cruel words like: after all he was just your boyfriend, you’ll bounce back.
No one can know or really has the right to judge the experience of another in grief.

Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

When I work with a living client one of my goals is to encourage them to be open to their deceased loved one. Validating messages, such as lights blinking, a smell associated with the deceased, finding coins or natural events such as birds, butterflies, blossoming plants is part of this.
But I can also help the living hear those whispered messages into their thoughts that come from their beloved deceased. These messages have a specific flavor or tone and are not something the living client would have had occur to them on their own. I always ask in what setting or circumstance the living “heard” the messages. Often it is when they are distracted but calm, for example when they are driving, not in heavy traffic, and alone in the car.
Recently, I was taking my puppy to the vet on his appointed day to be neutered and was thinking about my deceased friend Dotte who got me into dogs, and I changed the radio station in time to hear a song who’s refrain said: everything is going to be FINE FINE FINE. I knew it was Dotte answering me, as I was worried about my puppy. We are all psychic enough to receive messages from the deceased we have known and loved if we are open to them.

Blog | 2 Comments »