An article about Iona:

 

True Colors

By Jaila Hansen ©1987

Your life is a circle
I am a mandala-mirror and
These are your true colors.

 

The New Times, June, 1987 Seattle, Washington Cover story

I have a personal mandala shield, painted by Seattle healer/artist Iona Sharron. It is intricate, intense and intimately mine and myself. It is perfect for me, though some days I fail to see how. And though my mandala has been with me for several years, as I plunge further into my life it reveals itself to me anew in different layers, a deeper knowing, challenging: “Can you live this mandala, Jaila, be this mandala/” Your life is a circle. I am a mandala-mirror and these are your true colors.
The woman who painted this mandala for me, Iona Sharron, is herself a mandala, a circle of being and becoming that deepens with time. A woman who believes in circles. A woman committed to true colors; hers, the earths, all of creations. As painter, healer, teacher, holder of visions and tender of this planet, Iona brings to her work a deep reverence for the divinity of life as it unfolds in humanity. Human beings, this planet, as mandala. Circles of becoming.
As I have journeyed toward and awareness of my purpose as healer, communicator, and (stay tuned) on this go-around of life, models have been few, with gaping and gasping spaces in between. Many people, it seems, have attempted to convince me to follow this doctrine, that channeled entity, a certain meditation method, eat their food, their way. Few have simply offered, by example, a way of both being and becoming in the world which hands back to me the responsibility for my own life and which suggests rather than promotes. Away from New Age evangelism. And toward acceptance and affirmation of individuality and the importance of each of us choosing out own way.
Iona Sharron has been thi to me: a model in a no-model world. No feigned divinity. No claims of having arrived. Simply Iona in the world---incredibly gifted artist, healer extraordinaire, committed heart and soul and mind and money to the transformation of the planet. Practicality blended with practiced spiritual skills. A woman of power, in process and not afraid to live it. And. Radiant Light Being coming out of hiding, casting off all that the fearful shadowlands have asked us to wear and to be, and naming herself as she goes.
Both past life and early this life experiences pushed Iona into hiding what she knew and how she knew it. Iona has always known herself to be not at home on earth, as many of us, and for years it seemed the only way to survive was to suppress knowing and try to live a “normal” life. And yet there was something that wouldn’t be silenced. Even in her early work as an elementary school teacher, Iona found herself naturally using her spiritual skills to heal cut fingers, bruised hearts, broken minds, tattered dreams.
Her work with Ronald P. Beesley of White Lodge, the College of Psycho-Therapeutics in Kent, England, and her subsequent tenure as faculty with the American Branch, led her to make her commitment to come out of hiding, to show her true colors, and to work consciously as a healer and healing artist. And this has been her process for the last 15 years, which for me has been the greatest modeling of all; watching Iona’s gradual and courageously steady expression of her true colors in a world which covers its eyes in fear and ignorance and lashes out when even its fear becomes fearful. To live as one who sees what many do not see. To know, to sense, to remember. To live in this world as if it were already healed. And by so doing, to state with unarguable eloquence the power of the light, the power of our knowing.
Translating our indisputable knowing into this dense and reflective earth energy is tricky, at best; and one begins to wonder if it isn’t all done with mirrors. Visions that do come to pass, but looking nothing like our expectations. When Iona Sharron was eight years old, she new her artistic ability was a spiritual gift that she would be asked to use. She also knew her “seeing things” that other people didn’t was a spiritual gift. And she knew she wanted to use her gifts for Spirit. So she promised, from a Catholic schoolgirl’s desk, that she would paint “holy pictures for God.” Now she paints mandala-shields for people who are seeking an expression of their life’s journey in symbol. She reaches deeply into that place of knowing, beyond personality, and comes back with fists full of color, circle visions. And the she paints what she knows through her Iona-ness. Holy pictures for God. Visions come true. Only nothing like the child’s expectations.
Iona accepts with grace that we don’t know everything. And she also believes we know much more than we allow ourselves to claim. Central to her life and her work is a belief that humanity stands at the threshold of an un precedented opportunity for elemental change, and that every choice for life we make---as individual, family, community, nation, race, Brings us that much closer to the actualization of the New Day. We are at the edge of nothing less than total planetary and consciousness transformation. Unless we claim all of who we are, all of our power, we will only be partially ready when a whole self is required for our work. Hidden beneath a fear may be a tool for change which could make the difference. Or, a fear may make us vulnerable when a nothing-to-hide strength is asked of us.
Out of hiding now, Iona works full time as healer and artist; and for her they are the same thing. She assists people in accessing their own power and helps them to put it into the context of the greater whole. Sometimes this is done by helping people to name their fears and their blocks--- to name them, to feel them through her hands, to exorcize them, to reach them, to see them with spirit eyes, to paint them. And sometimes this is done by challenging people to open fully to their own darkness so it can be brought to light. Always it is done with a loving regard and an insistence on personal responsibility. A challenge to live our true colors, as ourselves in this world. Our best selves.
Her work takes her often into uncharted territory. Iona has been keenly aware of the nature kingdom for many years, and they of her. It has become part of her work here to open people to begin communication with the natural world, to experience this planet as a sentient, conscious being, and to open their eyes to the many levels of awareness that exist around them. She does this by facilitating personal interactions with beings from the nature kingdom. It is her belief that once individuals experience nature as having being and consciousness of its own, false separation from nature will heal and humanity will assume living stewardship over this Mother and all her creatures, our relations.
As part of that commitment to nature, Iona has been nurturing and vouch safing a vision which is well over a decade old; an earth mandala, a great circle of earth and trees and sky built as a healing center. . . a cup held to the planet’s fevered lips. And to ours. This project is to be accomplished in cooperation with the nature kingdom, utilizing natural power centers, and is an important tool for healing the planet. Iona has modeled the earth mandala, researched its construction, tended the trees which are to be used. And she has kept the vision alive, waiting for the right time, the right place, the appropriate people. To see the designs is to feel the heart of the earth mandala beating through the paper, awaiting its birth.
Whether working alone, painting, doing spiritual healing, teaching, performing ceremonies, (Iona is an ordained minister with the New Age Fellowship) or in partnership with healer Jean Hendrickson in the Oneness Series (a cycle of workshops designed to help people to awaken to their higher selves and to dissolve the illusion of separatedness), Iona is doing it, living her life as a spiritual being on planet Earth, emphasis on the spirit, thank you.
What I look for in a model is someone who is merely able to demonstrate to me that it can be done--- and who honors me enough to allow me the sanctity of my own way. Many have modeled many things for me in my life---hard things to do in this strange and beautiful world that I needed to know could be done. I live in gratitude to them. And Iona Sharron is one of a precious handful in my life who translates lofty spiritual principles and ancient knowing into daily living. Because it’s the daily living that gets us in the end. Not the mystical moments where our extraordinariness is called for, and which we all seem to manage to rise to, but the calendar mundane.
To decide on a daily basis not to live as small self---but to bring power to each moment. Each painting, each client in need of healing, each workshop and vision, to be sure. But also each grocery clerk, each self-judgment, each decision to love, each rush-hour driver. And I am as encouraged by how often she doesn’t pull it off as by how often she does; spirit becoming matter remembering spirit. Circle of becoming, already whole.
As Iona and others model for me, I see that I do the same for her and for unknown others. And it just goes on and on. I begin to realize that we are all indeed mirrors for one another, circles of becoming, mandala-mirrors. And as we have the courage to live in the radiance of our true colors, to come out of hiding, to shed past fears like old skins and to name ourselves as whole and powerful, we dare one another to do the same. To live as we are in Truth. Not to prune ourselves away into what someone else has judged acceptable or appropriate. But to live fully. Our lives are circles. We are mandala-mirrors and these are our true colors. Crimson to lavender, and all that lives between.

 

Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting?
By Iona Sharron © 1991
Published in The New Times, Seattle

"If what you say is the positive truth, oh death where is thy sting?" So went the beginning of a song on an old record from my father's youth. I heard it first at age 9 or10 and these lines came back to me on the third of September (1988), when my father "passed away".
I was there when Dad left his body. I had been there for much of the twenty-four hours it took him to finally break free of earthly bonds and go on to the next stage of his experience.
I've been there when others were "dying" and in the work I do with psychic cleansing, exorcism and past life recall, I have often reached across that barrier we call death. Each time that I have stretched my consciousness across that barrier, I have been enfolded by the power of unconditional love. But also, each time that I have offered, or been asked for, my support, I have found persons (incarnate or discarnate) struggling with their fear, usually of their belief in a vengeful God, and their own self judgment and feelings of guilt. Many times these fears have been around for lifetime after lifetime.
My father had studied "new thought" for many decades, yet at the last he had the "fear of God", which he had been taught from childhood, 'to overcome. When at last he did, a small smile came to his face and within minutes he had severed the ties to his body and gone on. I felt as though I was there in support of a long distance runner as he cross ed the finish line - calling encouragement, laughing with him at his accomplishment, and, simultaneously, tears rolled down my face. My father was leaving that form.
I .followed Dad in consciousness across the barrier called death, only far enough to see him enter the light; that tunnel of light so often spoken of by those who, though clinically dead for a time, have returned to tell of their experiences while "dead". The rest is up to that person, that soul, who for a lifetime was my father. I'm sure he's doing fine!
In my work, I have met many persons who had "died" and, for whatever reason, had not yet entered that light tunnel. These persons often had returned to a place where they had felt happy in their life, or sometimes had simply sought out a place to hide. Being free from the restraints of the physical body, they were able to go nearly any place they wanted. Then their confusion, anger or refusal to give up what they thought of as theirs (house, people, and possessions) brought trouble to the living (incarnate) persons involved, and I was called in to help.
One wonderful experience I had was with a woman I shall call Sadie (not her real name). Sadie had "died" two years after her son put her in a nursing home far from friends and himself. Moving her there, he had her cat "put down". When Sadie died, rather than going on into the light, she returned to "her house" which she had not wanted to leave. Arriving, she found someone living there. Being a polite lady, she did not immediately reclaim the whole house, but took it back one room at a time making it uncomfortable and cold for the renter, who by then was sleeping on the sun porch and using only a pan of the kitchen.
When I got there and talked with Sadie, I discovered she didn't realize she had died, though she knew something was wrong. While I "talked" with her, I also asked for help for her from within the light. Immediately, three discarnate people appeared, two men and a woman (people she knew and loved) dressed in turn of the century clothes. They had with them straight back chairs and a round table set with linens, cups and tea service. I had been encouraging Sadie to move on to new things within the light and, when I pointed out the tea party on the lawn, she did something which I will never forget. I could "see" her - an elderly lady in tennis shoes, warm socks and stockings, in a cotton dress and a too large cardigan. Her hair was wispy and grey. When she saw the people who had come for her, she seemed to leap out the window, across thirty feet of yard and land lightly beside them. As I saw her land ( was struck by a wave of energy I can only call pure joy, which brought an immediate lump to my throat and joyful tears to my eyes, At the same moment, her apparent form altered and she looked to be in her early twenties, dressed in the same mode as her
friends from the other side. All of this happened as her feet seemed to touch the lawn. She gave a little skip and I clearly heard her ex claim, "I can dance (again)". I was not quite complete with my work and so I went out and around the house to finish up, being encumbered by a body and not able to leap as she had. On the way, I came upon a cat and spoke to it, as is my habit. The renter, who had called me for help, spoke up at this point stating that she could not see a cat. So, it seems that Sadie's cat was not lost - and neither was Sadie, anymore.
There is much joy and awesome grandeur in the completion of the portion of our journey that we call a life - and in going on to what some would call heaven, the light or Home. This joy can be tempered by a deep sorrow when one goes across this barrier without having completed those things planned for the life (such as with suicide or other avoidances), but that is another story.
Death is not an ending, only the turning of a page in our journal of eternal life.
Fly high Dad!
And, Sadie, happy dancing! I love you. You are love. Love is all there really is.
And that is the positive truth,

The New Times, April, 1989 Seattle, Washington Page 13

To Follow A Dream
By Iona Sharron ©1989

 

In 1944 I was seven. That fall, as the corn tasseled, I heard (clairaudiently) “Don't forget, you have some important work to do" (in this life). I answered, "Yes, I know," and went back to, the game I was playing. But, I remembered.
In 1949 I was twelve. It was an eventful year, a year when one turns from childhood and starts toward adulthood. I thought about loved ones I would meet and know in this life and I saw (clairvoyantly) the face of an elderly man, a man I would not meet until 1974. I also wrote a free verse poem that year, for I was seeking to know myself.

“Though only a child I wonder still
If the day will ever come to pass
That there will be no cliff, no wall,
Between each person nothing at all
To bar the way of happiness
To halt the song of friendship.
Say, oh cliff, oh wall be gone. .
Leave not behind a barren space
But only woodland, stream and grace.
For there is no place in a world of good
For a person left misunderstood.”

In 1974, at 37, I was living in West Germany where I met and studied with the English Spiritual Healer and Teacher, Ronald P. Beesley, whom I had "seen" when I was twelve. He taught esoteric philosophy, truth and healing. During that first week, he drew and explained my aura and mentioned several things which I, as a good Scorpio woman, had never shared aloud with anyone. One of those was a central core need/desire of mine to help start a spiritually-based community (the "job" referred to by my “voices” at seven).
In 1976, while traveling in Europe, I suddenly heard (clairaudiently), "Take a tree to America," and this began the material rnanifestation of the "job" which I had so casually accepted in 1944.
In 1987 the spiritual community became manifest with a group of people who on August 24 heard of my vision and, recognizing it as a portion of their own, came together with me to form the. legal institution from which this community can grow. The Harmonic Order of Peace, also called H.O.O.P. (hoop) is a spiritual order, a church in the laws of the State of Washington, from which an ancient Essene brotherhood can again come together in service to earth and sky, creator and creation.
Does this sound easy? Idyllic? A dream manifested? Or, foolish? Imaginary? Misled? It has been called all this and more. Yet, it is my dream, my vision, my commitment, and has been for years! How does one manifest a dream and/or a spiritual commitment? How does one bring into being something both new and ancient? How does one let the others, who planned before this incarnation, know that this brotherhood, this order, this community can now become manifest in the Earth? How does one join with the universal, God, love, and with brothers and sisters to focus a pure and growing fountain of light, a tree circle of peace? How does one follow a dream, a commitment from soul to creator? I don't know. .
Does one commit and recommit one's self to the project? Does one tell anyone interested as much as they can or will listen to? Does one ask the help of God, angels, guides, friends, strangers, nature and the stars? Does one pray and meditate? Does one experience deep despair, high joy, tiredness, hopefulness, fun, work, hunger, and solace? Does one wonder how and why. who and when? Does one welcome those who recognize and join whether briefly or long-term? And, does one keep on following the dream, anyhow? Yes, one does.

Postscript: After a year of working together to establish a community as described in the article above, the group began to unravel. Individuals went into stress, I believe. Such a commitment is not to be taken lightly and often brings up what might be called unfinished business. Eventually, the tree mentioned at the beginning was given to friends who had land on which it could grow. I still have a place inside myself that wants to be part of such a teaching community, but I have come to realize that perhaps the planning and the unraveling provided learnings for each of us that were what it was really all about. Perhaps it was never meant to become more than a hope, a wish, a plan and a learning----. Iona, Nov. 05

Synergistic Spiritual Growth
By Iona Sharron
Copyright 2001

I am struck lately by how synergistically the universe responds to us in our strivings for spiritual growth, understanding, awareness, and even physical and spiritual safety. We talk about the teacher appearing when the student is ready and we speak of our spirit guides helping us. We also notice that sometimes we seem almost magically to be somewhere at just the right time to discover something which is a perfect next step in our lives. Admittedly we sometimes like and other times very much dislike where we find ourselves, but always we can gain from the experience if we will.
Throughout my life this synergy has been very noticeable. Against all intellectual odds, I have been led to the right place, person, book, or class so many times that I have come to trust implicitly that I am being offered all the tools I need at any moment I need them. Actually, everything each of us needs is always there for us, and as we grow and unfold our higher awareness we can become more and more aware of and interactive with these synergistic tools. It also helps if we take positive action on the hints the universe offers. Let me just illustrate.
I was only five when my father brought me a new sled so I could join the neighborhood children sliding down the hill by our house. It was my first sled and I was excited to get out there and do what the older kids were doing, namely throwing themselves belly down on their sleds and skimming down the hill. I had no awareness that my new sled was too stiff for my young muscles to control, and so when my guides (in a clear voice I was used to hearing) said, “don’t ”, I replied, “but I want to” and did as I pleased. Of course I couldn’t steer it, and having no previous experience with a sled, I ran right into a parked car. It was a hard lesson, but it taught me to pay attention. Paying attention to this inner communicative awareness has saved my life several times.
As a senior in university, I had a fifty- mile commute, part of which took me along a two-lane winding road with cliffs on one side, with a shear drop of over 200 feet, and a rock face on the other side. One day my guiding voice said, “slow down now”, so I did. Just ahead was a blind curve around which suddenly two cars appeared side by side and coming my way. Having slowed down as warned, I was at that moment just coming to a small unrailed pull off area on the cliff side of the road, which was about three car lengths long and one and a half car widths wide. I immediately swung my car into this small space. As those two cars flew by us, I pulled back onto the road and continued, having missed a head-on crash that would surely have taken my car and at least one of the others over the cliff. Neither my passenger nor I even had time for an adrenalin rush. The synergy of space and time was astonishing.
The synergistic experience I am most attached to began when I was only twelve years old and continues to this day. It is a clear example of the teacher appearing when the student is ready. At twelve I was feeling very lost in what felt to me to be a very crude and unintegrated way of life. I asked my guides if there wasn’t someone here that I really knew (implying someone whom I understood and was understood by and whom I loved and was loved by unconditionally). Though, at twelve, I had never been told anything about spirit guides, I did know that there were some trustworthy non-visible folks with whom I could converse silently when I needed to. What I needed to know was that I was not alone on a planet where people often seemed to me to be crazy, dangerous, generally irresponsible, ignorant, dishonest and uncaring. My guides showed me the face of a man whom I immediately recognized at a core level, but was not to meet for another twenty-five years. He was silver haired, and had twinkling blue eyes and a smile that I would not forget as the years went by. Having seen him calmed me. I decided I could continue and life went on. I did the usual things, school, marriage, children, job, but something was always missing. Finally I found myself with a personal need to be part of a spiritual growth group of some kind.
I was drawn to the A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) and eventually started a study group based on the Edgar Cayce Search For God books. In the second year of that group, which met weekly at my home, a brochure arrived in my mail. It advertised various spiritual workshops and courses to be offered later that year at the location where I had attended an A.R.E. Conference some months earlier. I was working as a fourth grade teacher in Germany for the U.S. Department of Defense Overseas Dependents’ Schools. Looking at the brochure, I was immediately drawn to one offering, which I absolutely knew I must attend. I did not even know what the course was really about, and was unable to find out over the intervening months. On top of that, the course was scheduled to the first week of school (at the beginning of the following school year). My sense of knowing was so strong that I told my principal he would have to get a substitute teacher for me that week and I made plans to go.
The location of this course was a castle in northern Germany about five hours drive from where I was living. I drove the autobahn, arriving in time for dinner the night before, as suggested when I registered. I had been at the dinner table only minutes when the course leader and his party walked in. To my utter shock, there was the man whose face I had seen twenty-five years earlier at age twelve. He was, of course, teaching the class. The following day in the garden at a break he approached me, asking, “Where have you been all these years?” He had been looking for me since the time I first “saw” him. It seems the view was two-way and we had seen one another as we would look when we finally met physically. I had never told anyone of that childhood experience, but he remembered it too. He also told me that I already knew all he had to teach. We eventually came to the realization that I needed reminding in order to bring this knowledge to the surface in this life. I was fortunate enough to know and interact with this world-renowned healer and teacher of healing until his passing five years later, and from time to time even now.
My teacher/mentor and great friend of many lifetimes was known in this life as Ronald P. Beesley, of White Lodge, Kent, England. He had known he could heal since he was five years old and had gotten in trouble as a child for delivering messages from family members who had passed on. He could see and read auras and note from them what had happened at various ages in one’s life and its current effect on them. I once watched him heal nerve deafness in a woman for whom several doctors had said nothing could be done. He called it congestion and cleared it in less than five minutes of energy balancing. The courses he taught were called Spiritual Psychotherapeutics, referring to healing at and from soul level which effects all the other levels. Attending his courses was like hearing the language of home after lifetimes away. I relearned to balance and stabilize chakras, to see with a finer eye what was happening in the physical body, to move and balance energy. Even more than that, I was reminded of what I already knew about accessing soul information, rebalancing and nurturing auric fields, clearing blockages, communicating with discarnates and on and on. The unfoldment of this knowledge continues to this day.
The synergistic steps it took to bring my mentor and myself together in Germany still amaze me. He had to leave aeronautical engineering; open a clinic in London after the Second World War; develop and teach a series of healing courses (taking them also to countries outside of England); and set up a registered esoteric school, known as White Lodge, the College of Spiritual Psychotherapeutics. Then he had to meet the owner of the castle in Germany, agree to teach courses there, and organize and schedule them. I had to get there too. I trained as a teacher and married a man who, as myself, was interested in doing something different, so we both applied to teach American children overseas. Then, we were transferred from our first overseas teaching assignment in Labrador, Canada to an Army Base in Germany. I had to organize an Edgar Cayce study group and then attend an A.R.E. European Conference at that particular castle in Germany so that I would later receive a brochure, which would draw me to Ronald Beesley’s class. I had to have already learned to trust my inner knowing and to follow it even in the face of opposition. Teachers do not ordinarily absent themselves from the first week of a new school year, especially for no explainable reason! Synergistically, I came from the West Coast of the United States and he from Kent, England. When I, the student, was ready the teacher appeared and two people who had known each other across time could see one another again. What a blessing!
I can’t count how many times in my life a book came to my awareness and become available just as I was ready to hear what it had to tell me. Nor can I guess how many times I have turned on the radio or television just in time to hear words sung, or an entire program presented, which filled in a missing part of something I was trying to understand. Sometimes I have even been introduced to a person who, during our conversation, said something that was just what I needed to hear then.
We are very blessed in our journeying on this planet but we must pay attention. If a book falls off a shelf at your feet, it is a good idea to look carefully at it to see if there was a reason it happened! If we feel impelled to change our speed or switch lanes driving, or to take a different route, there is probably a good reason. When something seems really right, or really wrong, we need to act on it. When we sense another person is or isn’t trustworthy, we must learn not to let social conditioning override that awareness. The more we pay attention, the easier it gets.
Truly, everything each of us needs is always there for us if we would but notice. The teacher, in whatever guise, always appears when we are ready.

New Spirit Journal, June 2005 Monroe, Washington Page 4

To Be, or Not to Be, - - -Psychic
By Iona Sharron © 2005

 

I had a surprise visitor the other day. A woman I have known for at least three decades came over for a visit. Her children and mine, who are all now adults, grew up together. We knew several generations of each other’s families. Early on I was warned never to talk with her children about things “psychic” or “new age”. This was always difficult for me, mainly because being quite psychic myself I could easily tell that her children were also psychic. However, her religious beliefs dictated quite another point of view from my own, so I tried not to break the rule. In all honesty, I think this is like asking a person from France not to speak French around certain people and not to speak about anything French.
I am also of the belief that psychic ability runs in families. I know that in mine, both my parents had psychic abilities, as did at least one of each of their parents. My own children do as does my grandson. I know this is also true of my friend’s children.
Imagine my surprise, then, when my long time friend began to speak about some of the psychic things which I apparently shared with her or in her hearing years ago. Not only did she recall such things, but mentioned a conversation which she had recently had with another person in which she had told about me, in a positive way. Then, as our conversation continued she began to tell me of various experiences which one of her children had recently. It seems that on more than one night there were the sounds of heavy footsteps and of something falling in the home of this adult child. Because of a security system, it was determined that no one had physically entered the home, but the sounds told another story. Of course, no one could be found. The second time this occurred, the young family moved out for the night.
I offered to take care of the situation, and told her about a recent experience where I had cleared a haunting for another young couple and their child. All the while I told of this I watched, as I have learned over the years to do, for the start of denial from my listener. Much to my surprise it did not come. When I finished, my friend continued her story, telling me that her daughter had often felt the presence of her deceased grandmother and recognized her by the fragrance which she had always liked to wear. My response was, of course, that fragrances often help us identify visiting discarnate beings.
My long time friend still belongs to the same religion, but the world is changing and she is experiencing some of the differences and making room for them. Suddenly it seems that I am seen as less weird and more as a source of unusual information.
Then I took a chance and told her that I was sure that all of her children were psychic. Her energy constricted and seemed to freeze. She disagreed, especially with regard to one of her children who is deeply religious. I dropped the topic like a hot potato. I had clearly stepped over the line.
Later, after she was gone, I realized that like many people she defines psychic as a noun. What she heard me say was that her children are all psychics. Not being familiar with such things, she reacted as if I had told her they were doing psychic readings or acting as mediums or such, which would be in opposition to her personal beliefs and theirs. I realized that I needed to inform her better. It also struck me that many people do not understand the word psychic at all.
My friend is not available right now, as she stopped to see me on her way out of town. I will have to wait to explain that the word psychic comes from the Greek language, meaning “of the soul”. I know I will want to tell her that the dictionary defines psychic not only as; “a person apparently responsive to psychic forces”, but also as “relating to, affecting, or influenced by the human mind or psyche; mental”, and as “capable of extraordinary mental processes, such as extrasensory perception and mental telepathy”, “of or relating to such mental processes.” But, this too needs much translating. And, many people simply go into overload when they first hear the word psychic and can’t take in the rest, which I admit is written in dictionaries in such a way that doesn’t say much anyhow.
What I think I must explain to her, when I can, is simply that to have psychic ability is much the same as to have musical ability, or language ability, or sports ability, mechanical ability, or any other ability. What we make of these various abilities depends on the choices we make in life, upon the experiences we have and our responses to these experiences. For instance, I have long thought that I could have been a singer, or at least have played a musical instrument. I have even been told that I have a good voice. Perhaps I was born with musical ability, but I never developed it in a way that made it particularly useful.
I have a basic mechanical ability, but don’t ask me to fix a car engine. I don’t know how. That is not the way that ability works for me, but I can use it as an artist to make my paintings visually correct. I can also choose the right hinges for my cupboard, so that they fit and do the job they are meant to do. I have developed those parts of my mechanical ability.
Psychic ability is the same. Some who have the ability will develop little of it. Others a great deal. Some will use it to enrich their religious lives, others to offer help to others. Some will see it as a spiritual gift. Others will avoid it as evil.
For myself, my psychic ability has been a given all of my life, but that does not mean that I have always been comfortable to share it. It has however, kept me alive on more than one occasion. It has led me to experiences I would never have had otherwise and to people I might never have met. Some of those experiences have been themselves very psychic, while others have been very ordinary, except for the fact that I would have missed out on them if not for my psychic ability, which put me in the right place at the right time. For me it is an ability I was given that I might share it. It was very hard for me growing up and as a younger adult to feel that I must keep it hidden most of the time. I knew it was meant to be shared and so I often felt I had gotten off the bus at the wrong planet!
At last, our society is making some room for psychic ability and allowing those who have it, to develop and share this ability, this gift. Perhaps for many who follow one of the Christian ways of belief it will help to read 1Corinthians 12. I think often of my paternal grandmother who read her bible every day and to whom information was sometimes imparted by friends who had died and wanted her to tell loved ones where to find certain papers, or just to say,“ Hello, I am fine” to loved ones left behind after they had passed on. My grandmother was afraid to share the information, afraid that her church would condemn her as somehow evil. How sad. What a gift to be able to share that life truly does not end at death.
Finally, as with any ability, psychic ability can be used and developed for purposes good or bad, selfish or giving, self aggrandizing or world expanding. Our free will and what we think is important makes all the difference. I hope I can get all this across to my old friend for her sake and for that of her children, and theirs, and all of ours.

Haunting: Scary or Not?
By Iona Sharron

It is the time of year when all sorts of “ghosties and goolies” suddenly appear; when perfectly ordinary adults and children dress up in costumes for trick-or-treat or Halloween parties. Halloween brings them out. But, what about the real ghosts? Are they like the ones portrayed on the television screens?

In my experience, the real ghosts are not much different than they were when they had physical bodies. If they were mean or kindly, selfish or generous, self serving or helpful to others, they tend to have the same general personality as before their physical body wore out and they experienced what we call death. At least this has been true of those I have met.

I must add that there are also more developed spirits such as angels, spiritual masters, and personal guides, which should not be confused with ghosts. Even though they sometimes appear to clairvoyants in a similar fashion to ghosts these more highly evolved beings are not caught up in the physical world, but are free to come and go as needed, whereas “ghosts” are caught here in some manner. Let me tell you of one of my ghostly experiences, which I think will make this distinction more clear.

Not long ago, I was called to the house of a young couple who had recently brought home their first child. They had sought the help of a friend and colleague of mine who referred them to me. When we spoke by phone, they admitted that they had known the house was haunted before the birth of their child, but had not really been bothered by it until their new baby seemed to be frightened. We made an appointment for me to visit them. During the two days prior to our appointment, I reached out in consciousness, asking for help from any higher beings who might be inclined to help in this particular situation. Upon arriving, I was informed that during the past two days their experience of being haunted had been more noticeable, even to the household cats. No, I had not told them that I would be doing anything before I arrived.

It is my habit to walk through the house with the owners, and then to settle them in one place and go through again on my own. I also warned them that I would be talking out loud to the haunting spirits and not to be bothered by hearing my voice. As I walked though the house the second time, it became very clear to me that there was a man who seemed to be about 50 to 60 years of age, with dark curly hair, who was very concerned about an elderly lady with white hair who seemed to be quite mentally muddled. I asked their names and at first thought the man said Ralph, but it was soon corrected to Rolf. The lady was Clarisse. I asked them why they were still in the house and whether they were aware that they had “died” some time before. Rolf understood, and said he had stayed to help Clarisse, but he was getting pretty frustrated and was not sure how to get her to leave and go on to the next stage of existence. Clarisse had been pretty confused by dementia when she “died” and had remained so in spirit. It took me a bit of talking to convince her that she could have left that confusion behind with the demise of her physical body. As soon as she began to respond to me with clarity, I took her to the kitchen, which had been completely redone since her day. I chose this location mainly because Clarisse was still wearing an apron, and I was right. She was quite surprised when I showed her the difference and spoke of the passage of time. At this point, Rolf interceded with the question of how he was going to get her out of there. I called on my “buddies” (spirit guides is a current term for such folks). At their suggestion, I told Rolf that he could dance her out and on to a higher realm. They both seemed delighted and danced up and away with help from higher beings. That took care of that.

Then, I went back to the basement, where I had felt there was another “ghostly presence”. It was a cement floored basement and I could clearly see where there had once been one of those
very large furnaces with the hot and cold air pipes which made for almost a giant octopus look there at one time. I noticed the spirit of a boy of who seemed to be about nine years, riding a big old time tricycle around and around the place where the old furnace had once stood. I sat on a stool near a work bench and asked him if he would talk with me. He came over and seemed willing, so I asked his name. He told me that he was Richard. I felt that he was the main reason that the new baby was often afraid and upset, so I asked him if he would walk upstairs with me. I put out my hand and felt him put his hand in mine and we went up the stairs together to the baby’s room on the second floor. I went in and sat on a twin bed across from the baby’s crib and asked Richard if he would sit with me there. He did, and I explained about the mother, father and baby who now lived in the house and told him that it was really not okay for him to be bothering the baby. I asked what he was doing there and he told me his story.

He said that he was not really a young boy, but that he had died as a young man in France during war time and that it had been so awful that he had returned to a time and place where he had once felt peaceful and good. As he told me this, I began to see him as a young man, perhaps nineteen or so, in uniform. He explained that he and his cousin had joined the army together and that he had promised the family that he would not let anything happen to his cousin. However, war was not as he had expected and his cousin was killed before his eyes. Then, he found himself having to kill others and finally being killed himself. He felt he had failed and could not go to heaven. So, he returned to the house where I found him, riding around and around as he had done as a child. As he explained all of this to me he began to cry and I offered him my shoulder to cry on. His sobs were deep and heart felt. I spoke to him as he sobbed and explained that he had not failed. He had simply not been able to do as he promised because the circumstances of war were not his in control. It was at this time that I became aware of another spirit close by. It was his cousin, who seemed to be standing slightly above and to our right He seemed to be holding a bottle of wine which, he informed Richard and I, was French. He asked what was taking his cousin, Richard, so long. He had been waiting to share the bottle with him (on the other side). Richard was delighted and began to lift in his cousin’s direction. Suddenly, I felt a weight in my left hand and said to Richard, “Wait, you are leaving something behind.” He turned slightly toward me and said, “No, that is my gun. Would you bury it for me?” I agreed and then he was gone. Looking down at my left hand I saw the gun, a wooden and metal rifle with a wide leather strap attached. I slung it over my shoulder and went to tell the couple of what had happened, who had been there, and to ask if we could bury the “gun” in their backyard, which we did a few minutes later.

When I told them of the names I had gotten, they related that, as they understood it, the house had been built in the 1920s by a Scandinavian couple who lived there until their deaths. They did not know the names, but we all thought Rolf sounded to be a Scandinavian name. When we came back in after burying the gun, they exclaimed at how “empty” the house now felt. They were now the only ones inhabiting the place.

In nearly all of my experiences, those who are haunting homes or places of business either did not know where to go when they “died” or were afraid to go on for fear of being condemned to “hell” for one reason or another. Far from being scary for the living, they are often the ones who need loving support and a way-shower to help them go on. Perhaps we should not be so accepting of haunting. It is really not very different than if you buy a house and the folks you bought it from insist on living there with you. Firmness about whose home it is now and directions for how to move safely on to the next level seem a better way to me.

No, I do not think that television shows of “ghosts” portray the real thing.

Iona Sharron has worked as a healer, visionary artist, teacher since the mid 1970s. She teaches classes and workshops, takes appointments for various sorts of healing, and accesses and paints information from your soul about your purpose in this life, which are called Personal Mandala-Shield Paintings. She chooses not to do psychic readings. 425-640-8872, 10am to 5pm, Mon through Fri.