Spiritual Awakenings International (SAI) Online Conference 2024 is coming up quickly June 8 – 9, with an impressive roster of 40 speakers from 14 countries covering subjects like Near Death Experiences, Kundalini Awakening, Expanding Consciousness & more. This is a FREE, donation based, event. SAI President, Dr. Yvonne Kason, and I created this short Speaker Spotlight video offering an overview of the conference. Watch now!
Presentations include:
Registration & more info @ www.SpiritualConference.org ~ Zoom link will be sent the day before the conference begins. See you there!
Several weeks ago, Spirit nudged me to create a meditation for people dealing with grief. At the time, I wondered if it was a portent for things to come. Of course, grief is part of the human experience. Loving deeply delivers greatest joy, but also greatest loss when a loved one dies. At this point in life, I am no stranger to grief. I’ve walked the path of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” as described in Psalm 23, most memorably when my mother died, and later, my husband. Both greatly loved, both greatly missed.
For me, grief is something to acknowledge and experience. It’s a time to slow down and allow feeling to bubble up and flow out, sometimes in tears, sometimes in closet cleaning or long, long walks. The relationship mourned is not really over, but transformed. With my mother, I ultimately came to feel how much of her lives on in me–my style, my voice pattern, my love for music and family, my ready smile. Gratitude replaced grief.
Grief for my husband took a different route, as it seems we maintain a relationship of sorts as he has simply gone from physical to non-physical. We aren’t in a day-to-day marriage any longer. No more, “what do you want to eat? What should we do tonight?” But rather, he is still around when I really need him, but most of the time now, we’re leading our post-marriage lives. Me, still on planet earth, he in another dimension. But when I am in a crisis, he makes his presence known, usually through music or the sudden appearance of coins.
Two weeks ago, grief came calling to my family as my older daughter, Sara lost her father-in-law, Gary. He’d gone into sudden decline, entered the hospital to hopefully get stronger, but instead, passed away. I’d been following the unfolding drama through long-distance communications with Sara. The afternoon Gary was breathing his last breaths, I found a shiny penny sitting on top of my car. How strange, I thought. How did that get there?
A couple hours later, I received the message that Gary had passed. Though not surprised, I still felt the reverberating shock wave of emotion of the family gathered around his bed. Gary had been a strong, much beloved center of his family. Greatly loved, now to be greatly missed.
When I returned to my car, a bright shiny dime sat in the passenger’s seat. The penny, the dime. Now I got it. My husband makes his presence known when I need him….Truly, love never dies.
The Relief from Grief Meditation is my humble offering for those dealing with the pangs of loss. Hopefully, those who listen will feel their spirits lifted and find their way ever so steadily to joy and appreciation for the love they have known.
A book review by Dana Taylor of UFO of God by Chris Bledsoe
Chris Bledsoe has called North Carolina home his whole life, a man deeply embedded in the culture, the land, the opportunities, and the challenges. On January 8, 2007, on a fishing outing with his teenage son and four friends, his life was forever changed by bright orbs appearing in the night sky. Though Chris thought he’d only watched the three bright orbs for twenty minutes before finding his friends, he’d gone missing for hours. That’s how it began.
Chris Bledsoe’s memoir, intriguingly titled, UFO of God, leaves more questions than answers as to what Chris and his family have experienced in the intervening years. Unlike other modern UFO experiencers that seem to relate visitors from other planets, Chris’ story is more reminiscent of Biblical characters like Moses (Chris has his own burning bush) and Job. Or the tales of Marian visitations like Bernadette at Lourdes or the children’s encounters with Our Lady of Fatima.
In fact, Chris seems to be a modern Job. A man who acquired considerable wealth in the building business, enjoyed a happy marriage with a houseful of healthy children only to see the good life disappear with economic downturn. Then illness through severe irritable bowel syndrome, followed by rheumatoid arthritis, impeded his ability provide for his family. Add to that intense ridicule and shunning after word got out of his otherworldly encounter, Chris Bledsoe’s life hardly seemed worth living.
By Easter of 2012, despite on-going visitations by the mysterious orbs and other phenomena, he tells the heavens he is done. He’s going to ignore all paranormal activity, never speak of it again, no matter how amazing something might be. It isn’t worth the abuse his children endure at school and in the community.
And that is when The Lady makes her first appearance. Awakened from sleep by the command, “Arise!” Chris is escorted to another realm to meet a beautiful lady of shining white light who tells him he must continue in the mission. She promises to help open the way. He has to tell the world of changes to come.
Within a couple of weeks, Chris is invited to speak at a Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) meeting. One thing leads to another, and soon Chris is networking with experts from NASA, the CIA, scientific researchers, top brass military and more. Beyond that, he is now able to capture footage of various orbs and phenomena on devices that had previously been elusive.
What becomes clear in UFO of God, despite a policy of discrediting UFO experiencers publicly, is that the US government has been deeply involved in studying encounters for decades. Men employed by the government who devoted their lives to the investigation of UFOs reach out to Chris, offering validation and insights from their overview of vast data collected since the 1940’s. They allow Chris to name them in the manuscript. Jim Semivan, Former CIA Clandestine Directorate of Operations and Col. John B. Alexander, Ph.D, Retired US Army, both wrote forwards for the book.
UFO of God is Chris Bledsoe’s spiritual memoir; it conveys much of his angst and wonder. In many ways, at the end it feels like the story may just be beginning. An investigative reporter may come along some day and write a book that answers more of the readers’ questions like – What happened during the missing hours of the first 2007 encounter? What all did The Lady say? What were the scientific findings from Chris’s brain scans? What have family members experienced? Who else is experiencing similar phenomena? Is there a big picture to these encounters? Indeed, UFO of God feels like the starting place for a much bigger story.
It’s impossible to read Chris’ memoir without feeling compassion for a man and his family who suffered through so many physical and emotional hardships as the supernatural took over their lives. I hope for Chris that he is granted the ending of Job with a restored family and fortune to happier days.
For me the most tantalizing takeaway from UFO of God comes from Chris’ second meeting with The Lady. From Chapter 16:
“When the red star of Regulus aligns just before dawn in the gaze of the Sphinx, a new knowledge shall come into the world.” I was not sure what that meant. I have come to understand that around Easter 2026 there will be the end of an old way and the beginning of a new.
Hmmm. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
For more information watch this interview with Chris Bledsoe by Regina Meredith
As he points out, the pandemic brought the reality of death into heightened awareness for a society that had learned to take longevity for granted and consigned dying to hospitals and nursing homes, far away from daily life. Mike has been exploring Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE) since 1987. He’s come to understand that consciousness goes on beyond human body habitation. One of his life purposes is to be work with Retrievals, which helps souls lost or “stuck” in lower dimensions, aka the bardo in Buddhism, purgatory in Catholicism, or simply “limbo” in secular terms.
A large section of the book relates many of Mike’s Out-of-Body Experiences as he might have written them in a personal journey. They reveal a much more complex Afterlife than simply heaven or hell. Some spirits stay earth bound, while others reside for a while in other lower frequency dimensions, often in “Consensus Realities,” not so different from earthly societies. Mike’s astral body travels these lower realms as an explorer and also as a helper for the lost souls needing assistance going to the Light.
Other sections of the book offer insights into the value of having a “good death” for a soul to go directly to higher realms. He also declares reincarnation is as real as gravity on Planet Earth. It’s the way life works.
How to Have a Good Life After You’re Dead is a very interesting addition to the growing lexicon of books on other dimensions beyond the human 3-D reality. The phrase we are spirits having a human experience seems to be gaining more credibility all the time. Mike Marable shows us that death is merely a transition into another existence and that life goes on and on and on.
So long 2023! It was….fun. My intuition told me it was going to be a challenging year. The winter atmospheric rivers that roared through the Santa Cruz mountains made simple things like getting to the grocery store and safely home again a major accomplishment. By the end of March living on the edge of a river had gone from charming to alarming. Without solid plans, but with faith in my heavenly guides and earthly friends, I moved my belongings into storage, and lived in several locations over the ensuing months. I had many adventures along the way, with old friends and new. As I look back on the year, one of the highlights was finding my way to Spiritual Awakenings International (SAI).
SAI was founded in 2020 by Dr. Yvonne Kason and Robert Bare, two people well-known in the community of Near-Death Experiencers. (See my review of Lessons from the Light by Dr. Yvonne Kason.) They felt led to provide a global community for people who’ve experienced a variety of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (STEs). From the Spiritual Awakenings International website:
“Spiritually Transformative Experiences” is an umbrella term for a broad range of spiritual and paranormal experiencesof consciousness, that all tend to cause a spiritual awakening and gradual expansion of one’s range of consciousness. All types of STEs tend to transform experiencers’ values in a more spiritual direction and propel an increased desire to be loving, ethical, and of service to others. Dr. Kason defines Spiritually Transformative Experiences into 6 major sub-types:
Mystical experiences;
Near-Death Experiences (NDEs);
Other Death-related STEs such as: Deathbed experiences/End-of-life experiences; Death-Watch/Shared-Death experiences; and After-Death Communications;
Psychic/intuitive and out-of-body experiences of many types;
Kundalini / Spiritual Energy Awakenings
Inspired creativity
SAI sponsors monthly guest speakers and Experiencers Sharing Circles. I began watching the presentations, both live and on their SAI YouTube channel. The quality of the presentations impressed me. When they put out a call for an administrative volunteer, I felt that little intuitive nudge, “go for it.” I responded and soon found myself in training with Dr. Yvonne Kason on a weekly basis as their YouTube administrator. Getting to know Dr. Yvonne and the other SAI board members has been inspiring, energizing and just plain fun. Their individual spiritual journeys are the stuff of novels. Together they share a sense of the Awakening of humanity. So many stories, so many people having extraordinary spiritual experiences. SAI provides a global community for them to come together.
This Saturday, February 3 is the Experiencers Sharing Circle on Zoom. People from around the world show up and are divided into small groups. Each Zoom room has a trained leader. Participants can share any Spiritually Transformative Experience, usually for about five minutes, each time around within about 40 minutes. There isn’t crosstalk or counseling, but sharers find comradery and acceptance. Some people simply listen if they aren’t ready to tell their story. If you are interested in attending, register at the SAI website to receive the Zoom link on Friday. All SAI events are free with donations suggested to cover administrative costs. You can register HERE.
This weekend I’ll be joining the Sharing Circle from my two-bedroom cottage in the redwoods of Boulder Creek, CA. My wanderings ended in September when fortune smiled upon me, and I secured a house near my daughter and her tribe of five. I have friendly, helpful neighbors, should the weather cause some calamity. For moment, I am settled, snug and looking forward to the year ahead. I hope you are also.
1983 was a personally difficult year. On January 3, our first home was destroyed by fire. Though my husband, two small daughters, and I were unharmed, the turmoil and aftermath were challenging, to say the least. In the spring, Nana, my vivacious maternal grandmother died after a long battle with cancer. Then, in summer, my mother’s stomach problems were revealed to be cancer also. Mom’s illness and diagnosis pulled me down. A dark cloud hovered over me wherever I went. In other words, I was an anxious, worried hot mess.
With all those slings and arrows of misfortune coming my way, I began reading the Bible, praying, and simply begging for heavenly help. In fall of that year, in the quiet of my bedroom, the presence of the Christ Spirit overwhelmed me. It was my personal “come to Jesus” moment. Such experiences are truly indescribable. My body filled with liquid love. I met an invisible, but very real, being of high intelligence, kindness, and protection. A phrase of prayer language repeated over and over in my mind. I eventually uttered the strange non-English phrase into the room. To this day, I often center myself and open up to Spirit with that same phrase, some 40 years later.
My spiritual journey has taken many twists and turns in the ensuing years. I parted company several years ago from the dogmatic beliefs of most Christian denominations, though I was grateful to find kindred spirits at Unity Churches. My daily life is lived with a multidimensional awareness of the divinity all around. I feel deeply loved by many non-physical beings, especially the One we recognize as Jesus the Christ. I am well taken care of by Benevolent Beings.
In this holiday season, I felt led to create a Christmas Celebration Meditation. And I share it here with you. I hope it blesses you. With Love ~ Dana