My Declaration

I put off writing this blog for a long time. I’m going to write about something those I love most in this world and many of my clients already know about me. As much as I admire many others who have my gifts, I’m not at a place yet where I feel comfortable walking up to strangers and sharing my gifts with them. I have battled my gifts for years. I have prayed, meditated upon, and spoken at length with the Universe and others who have similar gifts like mine. This all being said, I’m now coming out publicly. I feel to keep my gifts, which I know have helped hundreds if not thousands of people, I must fully embrace them and be out without fear of judgment. I must be certain in my knowing who I am. So, here it goes: My name is Kali, and I see—and sometimes hear—spirits of people who have died, animals that have died, and guides and what are possibly angels.

There is a sense of relief in sharing this publicly. However, there is also a level of fear I am working through. As an academic I often fear how this will influence how I’m perceived by possible employers. Honestly, at this point I can handle the people who cannot believe me and want to argue what I do. I actually understand the doubt they have. I sometimes battle with myself in the midst of seeing what I see. Having these abilities has offered me as much joy as it has difficulties. I had my heart broken by an ex-fiancé because he was incredibly judgmental of my skills. The irony of this breakup is that while we were together, I woke from a dream wanting to know why Karen didn’t want he and I together. I wanted to know who she was and why she made me feel so jealous. He had mentioned to me when we first started dating that his mother had died of cancer many years before, but he never told me her name. He only referred to her as his mother. I now understand this dream was a lesson in listening I had to learn. My jealousy of her stemmed from her telling me in that dream that I was not right for her son. I needed to let go of him. I was selfish, though, and hung on to him even as he slipped off the wagon into the depths of his addiction. I was completely unable to help him, and understood why this spirit of his mother Karen wanted to tell me that he and I were not meant to be together. I learn from these spirits and I know that is partially why I see and hear what I do.

Please understand that EVERYONE has this ability. The question is how open we are to it and how we live in a way that is honest to who we are meant to be. We are all energy. I read about energy, in effort to understand my being an empath and seer. I’m not a scientist, but I’m so fascinated by kinetic and potential energy and string theory and how they relate to the everyday living of human experience in regard to emotion and what we perceive. I must admit that I’m not sure what I’m writing will make any sense to anyone outside of myself. I just know that there are things beyond our knowing. I also know that the sooner we let go of the idea that certain types of resistance are positive, and that unhappiness and fear are natural states of living, we will be closer to the lives we were designed to live. I’m not perfect at living this message yet. I’m still learning. But I’m listening to the signs around me and how I feel in the moment and how I am communicating my needs to the Universe. My most difficult challenge is letting go of the idea that I have to have a death grip on my life. That is a perfect way of putting it: Many people feel the need to have a death grip on living.

Many people fear what is after this life. We have created theories on the afterlife. I wish I could tell people what happens after we die. I cannot do that. I can only interpret what I hear and see from the spirits and what they can explain to me with my level of knowing. In the thirty-plus years I’ve been able to see and hear, there are some universal truths that all spirits express. They tell me that, in the end, death is not as big a deal as the living make it out to be. If you are scoffing as you read this I understand, but I hope you will keep reading. What they always say is that the suffering and collateral damage they leave in the wake of their dying is not something they condone because it is created by the living. “Condone” is the only word that makes sense here, because after death there is no suffering, sadness, shame, or anger. These are strictly emotions of the living that are created out of fear and selfishness. These spirits have higher work that is beyond our understanding and the living must become open to the knowledge that those who are dead are not gone. These spirits are around us in so many ways, but they are not as tangible to us as they were when they were alive. The huge message they give is that they no longer judge, because judgment is a creation of the living, based in a place of fear. What we must learn is that we must know the difference between discernment and judgment, because to judge is the path to living a life crippled by fear.

What people like myself who see and hear possess is a different level of knowing, connected to a higher understanding of discernment. This discernment has less to do with knowledge than it has to do with wisdom. Knowledge is fact created through critical thinking to guide civilizations. Wisdom is the ethics and morals that are gained through experiences. Where this gets dicey is that knowledge and wisdom do have a kindred relationship, because in truth we as a civilization define what is reality, and reality is where our concepts of knowledge and wisdom come from. For some reason, the present day is a time when the need for an understanding of subjective and objective and knowledge and wisdom is dire, because our perception is skewed. This is why I know I was called to teaching. This is also why teaching is so critically judged by those who do not have the knowledge to be critical. But understand this: We are all teachers. We all have gifts to share to heal the damage that we have all created in this civilization—and we are all responsible for this damage, so we are all responsible for this recovery. The key to the recovery is our focusing our individual energies and effort, to stop wasting our collective energies.

So, what does any of this have to do with seeing and hearing spirits? Part of the energy we waste is given to the pursuit of pain focused on the loss of the people we loved in this life. This is, in fact, a hard lesson for me because I lost my father when he was just barely forty years old. I miss the potential of what we could have had, because what we had until he died was disappointing. When I receive spiritual work from others with gifts, they tell me that the issues I have with the loss of my father are hindering my self-growth, but I feel that even in writing this I’m doing that recovery work.

Those who are resistant to belief in what I do love nothing more than to bring up why it is I can talk with the dead but I can’t talk with my dead father. It doesn’t work like that. My understanding is I can’t see him because my need to see him is selfish, which is, again, as I mentioned above, a part of the fear that is controlling so many of us. I’m trying to let go and understand that he is there for me, and to not be sad about that. It’s difficult sometimes, but I feel the benefits of it everyday, because the less time I focus on his loss, the more time I can focus on the potential of what I have, and I have so much potential…we all do. I have seen my father briefly, and it was in times when I was so focused on other things outside of my selfish need to see him. He usually vanishes quickly because the minute I see him, that selfish and childish need in me comes immediately to the surface. At this point I see it as a comical irony, which I think is a step closer to letting go.

What do I see…and hear?

I have many folks who have witnessed and can attest to what I see. I’ve seen and described things for classes in Pennsylvania, for a school for the deaf in Knoxville, for various groups in East Tennessee and Texas, for friends and family, and for clients. I’ve seen things that I would have no possible way of knowing. I’ve seen things that people have disbelieved and then discovered through research was true. One story I remember vividly was guest lecturing live to my dear friend Maria’s “Haunted Pennsylvania” class. I usually do these classes via Skype. It was held in a different room on a different part of campus than usual. Once I opened my vision—and I can tune it in and out now—I saw in the back left corner of the classroom a woman suspended and hanging by her neck from a rope. Did this freak me out? It used to, but now I understand that it is just a print of energy left in the space. It’s not even really that person because what got them to that point is a creation of this world and that is not where they are anymore. That is the best explanation I can offer. I finally told the class what I was seeing. Maria had no idea what it was in the moment, but later discovered that a woman who resided in a building near there had in fact hung herself from the outside of the building. Maria is used to this in me. She too has so many of her own gifts. When we were in graduate school together I told her that the stranger she had just met on her way to campus was her future husband and that she would be pregnant at graduation. She married him between our second and third semesters and was nearly eight months pregnant when she gave her graduation speech.

I could write so much about my experiences with Maria’s students, many of whom I’m still friends with. My favorite was a young woman who walked in front of the camera during my Skype guest lecture. I loudly heard a male voice tell me to stop her and tell her that her father is so thrilled she wears his necklace. He wanted me to acknowledge it and tell her that he sends her so much love and to know that she is surrounded by his love. I told her this and she immediately burst into loud sobbing. She reached inside the neck of her high collared sweater and pulled out a rather large gold chain necklace. I remember hearing the class gasp when she told me her father had died the year before, and that she had worn the necklace every day since he died because it makes her feel connected to him. I cried. Even I’m blown away when I get so close to the connection people I have never met before have with their loved ones they have lost. I believe part of why I cry is to help release the pain the loss of that person holds for the living. I will say, however, that is only a theory.

My family has these gifts and have for generations. It makes for interesting family gatherings. I remember the Christmas Eve my mother witnessed my niece and me both seeing her grandfather in a large wall mirror. My mother was sitting at the table when she saw it happen. Apparently, my niece and I both stopped in our tracks in unison, intently staring into the mirror, then simultaneously we both turned to look behind us for someone who was not there. She immediately asked us what we had seen. We were not aware we had both seen the same image in the mirror. She questioned us, and after we both confirmed we had in fact seen the same image, my mother went into her bedroom and brought back an old sepia-tone photo of her grandfather. My niece and I both confirmed seeing the exact same person in the mirror. Who we saw was a thin aging trickster of a man with slick dark hair that hung in front of his right eye as he tipped a hat at us and winked his incredibly blue left eye. Then he was gone. I remember thinking someone was in the room, which was why I turned around. Apparently that was my niece’s exact thought because she also turned, hoping to catch the image we both saw in the mirror. My mother told us that night that Christmas Eve was her grandfather’s favorite holiday and he would come over to her house and have dinner. She told us he would always tip his fedora and wink at her before he vanished out into the cold Missouri night. I had not known this until that night, and I’m grateful for this experience because it helped relieve much relationship stress between my mother and me.

I know what I do helps people. I see the relief they experience when I can see or hear someone they have lost. I also see the guidance and ease of spirit my tarot, palm, and automatic writing bring people. For this I’m incredibly grateful, although it has taken me a while to get to this place. I am very happy where I am, and I’m opening myself up to all the gifts I feel the Universe has to offer me. I know I have been gifted with a high level of strength and resilience and an ability to experience true empathy for the people around me. I am blessed. We all are blessed.