There is so much I could add to Choices In The Afterlife from the client work I have done since the book came out that I needed a venue to tell more stories. So I decided to write a short, fun newsletter and send them to the list of email names I keep of clients, people who purchase the book, friends, etc.
I would like to share these letters with everyone who visits and if you want to be added to my list there is a link at the bottom of this page.
September letter: (pets)
Hi Everyone,
One way that animals communicate is with visualization. They mentally project a picture of what they are thinking about. Of course in physical, critters also communicate with gestures and vocalizations, but the most subtle way they communicate is with visualization.
One spring I brought a horse back home after boarding her for a winter. I noticed she was standing stock still staring at one of the other horses who was staring back at her. I moved to stand in between them and caught the end of a horsey slide show as one horse was “telling” the other who she had been with, what the barn looked like, the humans there etc. We visualize constantly as we speak, but we are not as conscious of it. Animals can pick up on our visualizations and we can pick up on theirs.
This spring, a client, Mary, had postponed a reading as her beloved dog, Max, had just died. A month or so later when we opened in a meditation to link Mary to her deceased mother…and a large black dog came instead.
Max was a clear as day with me. He showed me a small wicker basket- without a handle, that he was carrying in his large mouth very carefully. My client, Mary, said every evening she compiled a treat basket for the dogs when she went in to watch TV… and she had never let him carry it as she didn’t trust him. I could see him suggesting to her that he carry it and her laughing and telling him no way! Max also showed me the dog that he had loved the most. If memory serves me, it was a dog who is also deceased and Mary was happy they were together.
Max also gave us a bit of a puzzle. He showed me small green and white checkered tiles and that these were close to water. Mary and I went back and forth, I asked if this was a park, a fountain, her bathroom…but it was a month or so later that she realized it was where his water dish was.
Max also communicated some pretty intangible things. He showed me the bathroom in Mary’s house and said: “I won her over”. We figured out that this was about the woman who helped Mary clean. Mary is at an age where scrubbing the tub is a hardship and the woman she had to help was afraid of dogs, and Max is a big black Great Dane cross…. Eventually he won Mary’s helper over and she even let him kiss her once in a while as she was down scrubbing the tub.
Although I can see visualizations from animals both in physical and not, I rarely communicate with deceased animals for clients. Humans are very emotional about beloved pets and it is hard to get through all that human emotion to the messages from the animals. I’m not as comfortable filtering the human emotional component in readings with animals as I am with readings with deceased people. (go figure?) Also, sometimes animals don’t have much to say to us, feeling either like they have said it all and/or -in their intensely NOW focus- don’t even get why we are asking for communication. Mary has mature quiet energy and of course Max has a great spirit. I may have declined the work had Mary asked for Max specifically and then I would have missed meeting the humorous, loving dog.
Last fall, I did a meditation for dear friends who lost their yellow lab Miles (one of the oldest souls I have ever met). Miles was the son of my now deceased Emma, and Miles had helped parent my friend’s 4 children so they were understandably distraught. In an attempt to console them, I opened up to Miles and he gave his humans a great goodbye gift. Miles was in quite a pack of deceased dogs, dogs that he had known in physical. What fun they were having. When Emma came from behind some other dogs to share love energy with me again it was so amazing I just lost it! I was hoping to see Emma, my sweet pea, when I died, I just didn’t want to impose on Emma to remain as the dog I knew if there was something else she wanted to be instead.
I do often find dogs with the deceased. I write at the end of Choices about my friend Dotte who died a few years ago. She was greeted by her grandmother, but also her Phoebe was there. I asked Dotte how it was possible to be with Phoebe out of body. She said Phoebe did not stay with her unless Dotte actually called her and is paying attention to her. Phoebe will come when Dotte needs or wants her but Phoebe doesn’t just hang around with her like she did in life.
When a focus of (our pet’s) energy is self knowing and stong, it does not vanish at physical death. It can reincarnate and even can share the form of another already living animal who is receptive. We know this as channeling in a human sense but animals do this all the time as well. I see my sweet Edmund in our young dog Otto. We still have Edmund’s litter mate/sister, and Otto touches her with with such tenderness at times. I believe I have had the same cat twice, whether one channeled the other or was the reincarnation of the first cat is not important to me, the energy experience of that individual energy focus was the same in each cat.
So we can honor the memory of the special companions, but not close the door at all to having the experience of that pet either here in physical again or waiting for us when we transition to their level of energy. Love keeps all the possibilities alive.
Oh, and we did another reading for Mary in which we contacted her mother- as her mother commented: “once we got the dogs out of the way.”
My best to you all,
Gretchen
August letter (my near death experience)
Dear Friends,
On August 21st it will have been a year since I died. OK, a near death experience but I’ve been thinking about it more as the anniversary approaches and felt compelled to share with you.
A benign tumor on one kidney (who knew it was even there…) ruptured that morning. To say it was painful in an understatement. So there I was in the ambulance screaming as loud as the siren and…
and then…
I saw a beautiful sky blue color all around me.
I felt like a cool breeze was blowing through me- like I was made of air.
I was not in pain.
It was blessedly QUIET.
I thought, can’t I just stay here?
I held onto that place as long as I could.
I remember about where I was on the trip when it happened and I didn’t come back into my body until we got right in front of the emergency room doors…so it must have lasted at least 2 minutes.
I didn’t:
see a tunnel
see anyone else
hear any voices.
It was easy, natural, floating and wonderful- well compared to the immediately previous experience. And I wish it again for real when my time comes.
But then if I died who would the medium be who would connect me to my loved ones on earth?
I know I promised dog stories this month- next month-I hope.
If you have insomnia check out my new you tube segments, the sunflowers are so cheerful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka1JDRUwdNg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLoTNH6qaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMxs–O2SoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hxh4NjHWYM
As always if you do not wish to receive this let me know.
My best wishes to everyone,
Gretchen
PS, I am healthy as my horses now.
July letter: (new forms of meditation)
Hi Everyone,
If any of you want to listen to me live on radio I will be interviewed by Kimmie Rose, this Thursday, July 23rd on CBS Psychic Radio Network which is on some 120 HD stations, also as a live stream if you use the url (or link if it carries through to you) of (http://psychicsonair.com/pages/3991791.php) I should be on from about 9:15 to 10:00AM. I’m not sure if they will be taking calls, the number is: 248-353-7685.
My new form of client work (the meditations) is quite interesting as it develops and working with individuals, both the living and the living without physical bodies (aka deceased) are teaching me lots. This new form is helping the physical living client in a visualization to change their mental focus and get to see and be with the beloved deceased, having a direct mental and spiritual experience with me there as a coach, protection and interpreter.
One recent client was so good at the visualization, she was out there and had the platform for communication- or scene well developed, and the mother said to me that she couldn’t figure out how to get into her daughters thought projection. So I returned the client’s focus to her bedroom where she was sitting, the mother joined us there as I mentally focused there myself.
Another recent client easily reached her daughter (she had been with her in dream state many times already). I was curious how the daughter “saw” me, and she said I looked like the man in the moon to her- that I was sort of hovering up there watching over what was happening- how cute is that!
Not long ago I re-read a book, the Eagle and the Rose by Rosemary Altea. She has a native American shaman for a guide named Grey Eagle who brings her the deceased. I know I have angels who protect me but I’ve been a bit jealous that Rosemary has this immediate, tangible helper on hand when she works. With this new form the living client through love calls the deceased so I can see them and it saves a lot of time and searching for me. We can get on with the details of the communication much more easily and clearly. I don’t expect that we will never have another deceased coming instead of the one we ask for, there are so many who want to communicate and bask in the love energy that these readings generate- but I think it will be easy to tell when we have and imposter- in fact that has happened already, so we politely asked again for the targeted deceased.
Here is a wonderful story from a recent reading. When we (my client was the daughter) asked who greated the mother when she died I got the words very clearly: A GREAT LOSS. So I asked the client, who suffered a great loss? She replied, of course that she did when she lost her mother. I said yes, but I am seeing a young man around the age of 30 as the greeter of her mother, did she have a brother who predeceased her, cousin, etc. My client answered, no..then I said I see him dancing.
She then understood. Her grandfather, her mother’s father died when she was two, so no one knew much about him- EXCEPT for this one story that when her mother was born her father drank too much celebrating, and was dancing in the street. Well, the father- when he greeted his long lost daughter- danced his joy again when she died- imagine, we who stay in life can be the ones long lost to the loved ones who continue life on the other side. And also this father had been a guide to his daughter her whole life so he was never very far away- how is that for a father’s love!
OK, I meant this letter to be about the deceased dogs I have recently swapped stories with but that will have to wait untill the next letter.
My very best to all of you and as aways if you don’t want to recieve these letters just get back to me.
Gretchen
Gretchen Vogel
Choices Publishing
HowSpiritWorks.com
PS,
I have a presence on Facebook, and several other social networking sites that have links on the bottom left column of the http://HowSpiritWorks.com. So if you ever are super bored and want to find me on these other sites, have at it!
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June letter:
Hi Everyone,
Recently I did a reading in which I did get some clues, but I never had the feeling that I was really with the deceased person I was looking for. I was ready to pack it is but the man who was my living client was so disappointed not to reach his wife that – as a last ditch effort- I led the widower in a visualization. His emotional energy was powerful enough to reach her; he was able to connect with his beloved deceased wife.
Although his wife had health problems and had been sick, her death came as a surprise to everyone- mostly to her. I knew that the husband and his wife had been spiritually active in life so it was interesting to me that she was not near the earth. (I have to confess I had anticipated an easy read.)
She showed/told her husband she was greeted by a grandmother who also provided the environment she had been in since death. Her parents came into the grandmother’s spiritual house for visits. She admitted that she could only get the faintest glimpses of earth life (which told me that she had transited the earth portal already) and she said she was struggling to create or envision her own environment, preferring to stay in the grandmother’s projected environment. She is staying in a loved and loving place that is a valuable and viable subjective experience. It seemed to comfort my client that his wife was where she was, and even though he had hoped for more, I felt he learned what he needed to know.
Since his guided visualization I have done several others. It is interesting which of my living clients accept this mental and seemingly imaginary experience as real and which are uncomfortable with this form if meditation. Men seem to do it easily, some women second guess themselves a lot.
I am excited about this form of guided meditation/visualization with my clients- not only does it give my clients a direct experience with their friends and relatives, but it it how they will see, feel and hear in the afterlife- a rehearsal if sorts for their own afterlife.
I was told a few decades ago by a guide that I walk the world with the same perceptions and abilities as I would have if I was dead. Although this is not something one puts on a resume, I have grown into the compliment. I think all of us can do some of what I do, like playing chopsticks versus playing a more complicated song on the piano- the only difference is practice. I think this mental ability is part of the human condition.
I am fairly certain I am going exclusively offer this form of work in the near future- perhaps I will have to call the readings something else.
Happy Summer Solstice,
Gretchen
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May, 2009 letter:
Hi Friends,
So often my clients have a curious mixture of disbelief and amazement during the readings with their deceased loved ones.
I know the feeling.
In Choices In The Afterlife I write about my dear friend Dotte. After Dotte died I asked her husband if I might have something small and personal of hers (that carried her energy). I have several presents from her and Ray, a teapot, a lamp, a set of knives…but I wanted something OF her. By the time I had asked this, her daughter and his daughter had already cleared out her things and I was not comfortable asking them to pick something out for me.
A few months later in a mental conversation with Dotte she said there was something of hers for me that was white, black and red. I related this to Ray and he couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. We both forgot about this for a while, and then Ray opened some dry cleaning he had in a closet. Low and behold there was a white shirt of hers, with a black and red logo on it from their business. Of course that is what Dotte was referring to.
OK, now this was personal! I always tell my clients that the deceased know what they want. I had never gone whining to Dotte in any of my meditations with her that I didn’t have something of hers, she just knew it, and made that happen for me.
I treasure that shirt, feeling the power and intelligence and closeness of my friend when I wear it- and also feel a curious mixture of of emotion, what my clients must feel, a mix of blessings and amazement – maybe that magic happens. I have this touchstone, this shirt, this event with Dotte much like I help others have with their loved ones that are outside of physical.
So as I lead more and more people in meditations to communicate with their loved ones and they ask, how can I tell I am not just imagining it- well I know magic happens. We may not all get a shirt, but we all can receive gifts in one form or another, the smell of perfume, lights blinking, coins found, dreams that soothe. The deceased really can reach through the veil, really really.
Gretchen
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April 2009 letter:
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.
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March 2009 letter
Hi Everyone,
Since Choices In The Afterlife was published, many of my meditations for clients with the deceased have expanded my understanding of the afterlife, and I wanted to share these stories occasionally with you. If you don’t want to receive this please just let me know and I will delete your address from my list.
March 2009
Recently I read for the girlfriend of a 19 yr old young man who died of natural causes.
When I asked him who greeted him he said his Uncle did. My client, his girlfriend, said he had no deceased uncle and I suggested there might have been a (pre-deceased) mentor who felt like an uncle to him.
She said not that she knew of.
When I pressed J. again, he described his uncle as a seedy character who drank and smoked, but had a great heart, thin and in cowboy boots and jeans.
My client replied, yes that is his only uncle, but his uncle is not deceased.
J. explained: I was dead on the floor of my apartment and my uncle was the one who found me. When he tried to revive me and he realized I was dead, that is when I also realized I was dead. At that point I got up out of my body.
When I asked J. if he had seen anyone else, perhaps a grandparent he said no- no one else had come for him.
My client explained that J.’s mother and brother were adopted, he did not know who his father was, so there was no ancestor he knew of that pre-deceased him.
This is the first time I have ever heard of a living person fulfilling the role of the greeter. Greeters inform the deceased that they are now outside of physical, and are normally pre-deceased loved ones who help us out of physical.
I don’t know if the uncle will ever know the important role he played for his nephew. Then again, maybe he will as I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that J. will fulfill the role of greeter when his Uncle transitions. It works like that.
Thanks for reading this and I will be sending more stories.
Best wishes,
Gretchen
Gretchen Vogel
Choices Publishing
Keene, NH
603-209-1032
howspiritworks.com
To be added to the list please write to me at:
solaceforyou@yahoo.com