CLAIM YOUR EXPERIENCES. . .and
"Claim your experiences!" Minnie told me on her sweltering hot Kentucky porch that summer day. "Don't let coincidences, spirit communications, premonitions, lucid dreams, miracles and joyful moments go un noticed & unclaimed."
These personal faith building words of advice have echoed through my heart and soul years after she spoke them.
When I'm tempted to turn away from a metaphyscal or miraculous event, no matter how small, I pause to remember Minnie and her advice.
Let me tell you about Minnie. I dare say, I'm not the only one who praises her spiritual teachings. The Judds of Hazard, now famous for acting and singing, know her quite well and in fact she is written about in one of their autobiographical books.
She's a woman one never forgets. Never. She lives in an old house of her choosing. Years ago she decided that a view of the appalachain mountains was spectacular enough to ask the farmer who owned a cow pasture with a dilapidated structure on it if she could live there.
The farmer had been storing straw in the large old home, as if it were a barn. She didn't care, she was starting with the joy she felt by the view of the mountains and moving forward from there.
She scrubbed the hardwood floors and updated the outhouse. The giant covered cement porch with surreal cement block steps, became a shady haven with comfy chairs and breezy swings. Hummingbird feeders and flowery vines began to creep along the gutters.
She built two beds holding mattresses stuffed with real chicken feathers. She stuffed them herself. Soft and silky. Each of the large beds came out from a wall with a homemade canopy of curtains creating a private little bedroom to be in.
One bed was in the livingroom, amidst the busy bustle of the rest of the house. But when used as a guest bed, the curtains would shut out all light and chaotic movement, and it had a little reading lamp attached to the wall.
Minnie hung sheets with cow pictures on them as wall paper, and cow statues adorned the shelves. She made great fun of the fact she'd chosen her home in a cow pasture!
As a weaver of rugs and of stories, she began to live the life of her bliss. A self directed powerful life of a woman with a purpose.
She built a gigantic loom which stretched across the entire upstairs length of her old house, and on this she created large rag rugs of every design. She made a living selling her creations. They are beautiful and adorn the floors of many people across the United States.
A smaller loom stood in her downstairs living room. Even the looms came with many stories she told us over the years.
Minnie set up her life to provide solace and mentoring for the community. People would travel from miles away to meet her, and people would travel from our local town to be there, too.
I remember many times when we needed someone to talk to, even at 3 o' clock in the am she'd be there for us. We'd exclaim at the dazzling country stars and dance on the blue grass under the Kentucky 'moon bow'.
We'd enter her cow pasture through the drive-way gate, it had 'stargate' printed on a sign; and then up a hilly driveway to her big front porch.
After hours of laughter, learning and star gazing, I'd sleep on a feather bed. In the morning she'd make coffee and serve it up in huge round mugs which we'd drink on the front porch.
Out there on the front porch, we'd watch the fog roll up to us, off creeks from the valley at the base of the mountains. She'd talk of what the plants had told her on her walks or of alien contact, or about God.
There was no limit to what we'd disuss. All my troubles seemed to melt away on her front porch. I felt 100% alive. Time dissolved in to magical moments.
Minnie was born a daughter of a preacher in Hazard, Kentucky. As a college educated woman, she also loved to read. Spiritual books among many other topics. Minnie had been through the Course in Miracles, could remember just about any passage from the Bible, brought out knowlege from Jewish text and Hinduism, all the religions, and wove them all together for us to create beautiful truths.
She'd take her knowledge and weave spiritual guidance into stories and teach from her own personal experiences, with a flavor of Kentucky hospitality only a true southerner can offer.
Minnie would say, "The earth is a woman, and her soul is right here in the Appalachain Mountains"
I'd look out at those mountains and feel Goddess radiating outward. Sense her soul. All was perfect in my world.
On sundays, several of us would visit her in the morning and time would stand still. Suddenly it was three in the afternoon, where had time gone? Every sunday the same. Minnie was our church.
We'd tell her of things deep within our soul, and she knew exactly what to say.
"Always claim your experiences" She said.
We often wonder WHY people who go through a spiritual experience, something which could verify there IS life after life, simply turn their back to what just happened.
Why do some folks simply rationalize all the miracles right out of their lives?
Her answer for this was, some people are still sleeping. YOU are awake. Remember who you are.
If money suddenly appears at the right time, if a person we're thinking of suddenly calls, CLAIM this as evidence, build your faith.
Only you, your personal experiences, will create that needed energy you can turn in to greater faith. YOUR FAITH. And with faith (belief, no doubt, pure trust), you can create greater magic, more abundance, larger dreams in your life.
Nobody else can do this personal work for you. I'm so very thankful for those years learning from Minnie. She's still there on the cow pasture, still shining her light for many souls there on her front porch.
I'm miles away now. We still talk on the phone & I still think of her first when miracles and strange metaphysical moments occur.
Light Always,
Fawn