First sight.

Since I was about six years old, I had an interest in wearing glasses. Wearing a pair of glasses became a goal of mine. No one in my immediate family wore them, but I had a strange fascination with them. 

When I was eight, my family visited an aunt who loaned her pair to me once; I eagerly tried them on and reveled in the distorted visions her prescription gave me. It rocked my awareness.

But, sadly, my vision was normal. I even purposely failed my second grade eye exam. When I presented my mother the note the school nurse gave me, suggesting that I should visit an optometrist, her jaw dropped.

Glaring at me, her most fanciful daughter, she crumpled the note and threw it in the trash.

“You don’t need glasses!” she said. Case closed.

A couple years later, even my perfect sister Karen started to wear glasses because she couldn’t read the chalkboards at school. When my teachers noticed I strained to read the green boards, my mother relented and I got my first pair as well, just for school. By the age of twelve, I was prescribed my first pair of contact lenses, and from then on, my vision never improved.

As I grew more aware of my inner knowing abilities, my clairsentience, I wondered if I had predicted I’d wear glasses all along? It turned out that my extreme nearsightedness helped me with stagefright: when I performed without my contacts on (for fear dust may get in my eyes), the audience was a grey, nonthreatening blur that I could gaze at intently when performing a soliloquy. I enjoyed my softer focus when creating art; to this day, I prefer to draw eyeglasses-free.

I see the benefits of having blurry vision whenever I work with Spirit. When I don’t wear my glasses, my sight diffuses the matter around me, allowing the non-visual to rise more clearly. If I do wear them, I am able to fall into soft focus more naturally. I don’t communicate with Spirit with my eyes closed (I feel it’s a bit rude!), but I may look aside, or over the head of the recipient, because I don’t want to get involved with the recipient or read their body language.

Some cultures refer to clairvoyance as “second sight” but I prefer to give it #1 standing as humans are born unable to see much detail and many animal babies spend weeks with their eyes closed, yet instinctively know where to find their mother’s milk. I recall having intuitive communication with my infant son; I knew when he wanted me before he even cried for attention. My maternal instinct was able to read his unsaid needs.

Clairvoyance can be strengthened simply by practicing in idle moments: by softly gazing into the distance, up at clouds, at reflections in windows, or into your cup of cappuccino. Give yourself the time to let your visions form. Let your eyes relax, and trust what you see at first sight.