Let the world be your practice circle.

Last night I spoke with a friend about the habit some mediums have of taking their own sweet time to relate what they are receiving from Spirit. Such a medium will announce his link, but then take several seconds to absorb the information and try to understand what is meant.

There is a reason why developing mediums are asked to not pause, but to just keep talking, to not let there be any lags in the communication. 

A good medium will not attempt to understand what is being said, instead, her intent is to give Spirit a clear voice expressed in the emotions that are felt. 

Imagine a professional translator at work in a court of law. Will she take a lengthy pause to make sense of what her client is saying? Very rarely will a translator have to pause (unless, perhaps an unusual idiom was spoken and needed rephrasing).

Court translators use their honed listening skills to quickly grasp what is said and turn it into another language. It takes a great amount of focus to do this work. It takes a sense of responsibility to not distort what their client is saying as well, as they are presenting evidence to a judge and jury.

A medium has a similar task: he gives voice to those who cannot be heard to give information that is turned into evidence (when the recipient accepts it). However, perhaps more like literary translators, some mediums use poetic license and rephrase what Spirit says, layering on their own symbolism.

Say a spirit communicator is sensed wearing blue scrubs. Medium A says to the recipient:

“I see a woman wearing blue scrubs so, to me, that means she’s a nurse. Was this woman a nurse?

Recipient: No.

Medium A: Did she work in a hospital?

Recipient: No, not really.  

Medium: Well, shoot, I know what I’m seeing and I’m seeing scrubs. Lemme see what else I can get about this lady...I see a dog. I imagine this woman loved her pet dog..."

Medium B says to the recipient:

“You’ll understand a woman wearing blue scrubs. Looking closely at the scrubs, I see a pattern on it, in a darker color. The pattern looks like splotches...no, they’re black paw prints.

Recipient: Yes, I remember those scrubs.

Medium B: She’s laughing, says you always thought they were cute. She shows herself at work and there is a dog next to her, she’s greeting the dog in a veterinarian's office. Would you understand she worked in a vet’s office?

Recipient: Yes, I understand that."

In these two examples, one medium was more concerned about making sense of what the scrubs meant rather than looking closely at and describing the scrubs in detail, as Medium B had done. Medium A also saw a dog and “imagined” it was a pet, instead of describing the scene to the recipient.  

Who was the more disciplined medium? Notice that Medium A asked questions and got involved with the recipient. Medium B was focused on imparting the objective details of what she experienced rather than trying to understand a deeper meaning.

Remember that it’s the recipient’s job to understand what the medium says for their loved one in Spirit. 

Even is something symbolic is presented, it is up to the recipient to understand its apparent meaning. The medium is simply Spirit’s voice box, to interpret without distortion, without adding flights of fancy.

But how does a medium practice giving information this way, especially if they don’t have many opportunities to sit in circles?

“Learn to listen without distortion and learn to look without imagination.” --Jac O’Keeffe

Since all we know is experience, any experience is useful no matter if you consider yourself to be speaking to discarnate or incarnate spirits. Treat the world around you as your own personal practice circle.

On my walk this morning, I came across a juvenile blue jay hopping along on the sidewalk. As he wasn’t afraid of me, I squatted down and really took him in, describing him to myself with words like: male, compact, cute, fluffy but with shortened blue jay wing feathers, lost, hoppy! The thought crossed my mind, “Where am I? Where is my nest?” I just trusted what I felt I was given and hoped there wasn’t a hungry cat nearby as I walked away.

Every day, why not look around and pick out objects to describe in detail? Even better, there may be people around you with whom you can practice: describe their emotions, their moods, their relationships to you, their physical attributes.

If you’re out in public, take a moment a few times a day to watch interactions with families or work colleagues. Using your clairknowing, ask what are their relationships to each other? What is the dynamic going on? Who are these people?

As you interact with them, ask them questions, mirror their actions and moods as you allow their energy to slightly overshadowing your own.

Trust the information you receive and try to go deeper in the moment. Your practice of describing things and people to yourself may begin with only getting a few words, but it’s useful for building a facility with describing what you see in the moment, just as a medium would when working with Spirit.